


Out of the Woods

by Janieohio



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure, Brothers Grimm, Childhood Trauma, Custody Issues, Cute Teddy Lupin, Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Explicit Language, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Elements - see notes for more details, Fluff and Humor, H/D Erised 2020, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry Potter Has Long Hair, Harry Potter Raises Teddy Lupin, Into the Woods References, Kid Fic, M/M, Mind Healer Harry Potter, Minor Character Death, Minor Ginny Weasley/Blaise Zabini, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Minor Injuries, Minor Neville Longbottom/Hannah Abbott/Luna Lovegood, Minor Violence, Mystery, Panic Attacks, Past Draco Malfoy/Original Male Characters, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Post-Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Sarcastic Draco Malfoy, Sassy Harry Potter, Shop Owner Draco Malfoy, Therapy, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Yoga, supportive friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27355552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janieohio/pseuds/Janieohio
Summary: Teddy closes his eyes, wishing beyond wishes that the two men in his life whom he loves more than anyone would just learn to get along.A light flares.Teddy cries out, and the room falls silent.Harry and Draco struggle to find a way to escape a world of dark fairy tales and get back to Teddy, but the challenges they face are not all hidden in the woods.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 89
Kudos: 216
Collections: H/D Erised 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [persephoneapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephoneapple/gifts).



> **To Persephoneapple** \- I’m so excited to present this story for you. I’ve added a bit more explanation in the endnotes, as I don’t want to spoil your surprise, but just know that I was absolutely thrilled to be matched with you and I hope you enjoy this story.
> 
> To my alphas, [**Drarrelie**](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drarrelie/) and **[Drarrymadhatter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drarrymadhatter/pseuds/Drarrymadhatter)** , and my Ultra-Super-Beta **[xHemlockx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xHemlockx/pseuds/xHemlockx)** , you guys blow my mind. This story would not be half as good as it is without your amazing support, crazy brainstorming, and spectacular polishing skills. You have no idea how grateful I am for each of you, and I sincerely wish I could send you all flowers. And **Hemlock**? You need a freaking cape. Thank you!
> 
> Finally, to our lovely **H/D Erised moderators** , my brain is boggled by the amount of work you put into this exchange, and I am so honoured to be a part of it. Thank you for allowing us this amazing opportunity to share our stories.
> 
> **Note:** This fic has been tagged with fairy tale elements and pulls from themes of the original Grimm's fairytales, including child endangerment, child imprisonment, children in distress, children experiencing starvation, brief mentions of child abuse, and kidnapping; injuries that are life-threatening or appear fatal but from which the characters do or will recover; and temporary disability as the result of curses or fairy-tale injuries. We are noting these separately, rather than including them as tags, because the fairy-tale nature of these events is likely to affect the way that readers understand and experience their occurrence. We nevertheless do want to make this information available to readers who might find this content difficult or distressing.

**Prologue: _Moments in the Woods_ **

Harry sat hunched in a cage of Dark Magic.

The cage stood in a dark room nestled amidst the dark trees of a dark forest.

Which, of course, put Harry in a dark mood.

The darkness made something inside him want to laugh hysterically. He pushed that aside, analysing his mental state like the professional he was and decided that he was under a good deal of stress but hadn’t lost his sanity— _yet_.

He held his wand, but it was useless. Well, it still worked as a back scratcher, which was handy as he was pretty sure fleas were crawling up his back. He was beginning to itch just thinking about them.

The boy in the corner had finally stopped sobbing and moaning for help. Or, at least, Harry thought he had. It was hard to tell as the magic that had entrapped Harry and neutralised his magic had also killed the translation spell. Even if Harry wanted to ask the boy questions, they couldn’t communicate.

He knew that if he didn’t think about it rationally and try to come up with a plan, he’d panic. The last thing he needed was to lose his shit while trapped in a magical cage in some unknown world while waiting for Draco bloody Malfoy to rescue him.

Right. Malfoy. Fuck.

He’d left Malfoy in there with that creature, so sure that he’d be right back that he hadn’t even clued Malfoy into there being a problem. So, because of Harry’s stupidity, Malfoy probably thought he was still in the loo. Because of Harry’s recklessness, Malfoy had no idea there was anything to be worried about. And now Harry depended on a man who didn’t like him to come and save his stupid arse.

He practised his breathing exercises, but the stench of the boy’s unwashed body and toilet bucket had finally reached him, making his stomach recoil in disgust.

A plan. He needed a plan.

When Malfoy came for him and somehow got him out, they’d rescue the children and…then what? They didn’t know where they were. How could they save the children and get them to someone who would take care of them? Even if they did, they had no idea how to get themselves home. What if they couldn’t? What if they were stuck here? Forever? There’d be no one to care for Teddy. _Oh fucking Merlin, we’re screwed._

He rested his head on his knees and waited.

* * *

** Chapter 1: _Children Will Listen_ **

“When she yells at me, I get scared, and it makes me want to cry.”

Harry smiled at the boy fiddling with the little pillow on the couch. “That’s normal. Why do you think she yells, Ollie?”

Ollie shrugged, his apathetic gesture heartbreaking in a boy of just six. “’Cause she hates me.”

“Hmm…” Harry watched the boy closely, taking note of the slumped shoulders and sad eyes. “Do you ever yell at her?”

Ollie nodded slowly.

“Why do you usually yell at her? Is it because you hate her?”

The boy’s eyes remained on the pillow, his light brown hair falling carelessly over his brow. Harry let them sit in silence, hoping the boy was thinking over his question. It took almost two minutes, but Ollie finally looked up. “No. I yell at her when she bothers me.”

“Okay. But you still love her?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Sisters and brothers can be hard to understand sometimes, but they’re special, aren’t they?”

Ollie scrunched up his face before shrugging one shoulder. “But I don’t like it when she yells.”

“Understandable,” Harry answered. And he _did_ understand. Ollie and his sister Jenny had been knocked around by their mother for years before the grandmother was able to get custody. Ollie suffered from a post-traumatic stress disorder common in abuse victims, and his fear of raised voices wasn’t surprising in the least. Harry’s job, however, was to teach Ollie how to cope with that, and to help him heal. “What do you think you can do next time your sister yells and it makes you scared?”

Ollie picked at a loose thread in the pillow, winding it around his finger, and then let out a little huff. “I’d tell her to stop, but it’ll just make her madder.”

“You can’t control other people’s actions. You’re right. You can only control your own. So what’s an action you can take?”

“I can ask her if she needs a hug, and then if she keeps yelling, I can go get a hug from Grandma.”

“That would be nice,” Harry agreed. “What if Grandma’s busy?”

“I can go to my room and close my door and play with my toys.” He sighed. “But I really wish I had someone who wouldn’t be too busy to give me a hug.”

Harry’s chest tightened. “Everyone wishes that sometimes, Ollie. Even Grandma and Jenny.”

“Yeah?” Ollie looked up, his eyes wide.

“Yeah, even me.” Harry gave the boy a smile and noticed the clock on the wall. “Listen, we have ten minutes more. Do you want to have a game of Exploding Snap before we finish?”

“Yes!” Ollie cheered. He jumped up and ran to the table where he and Harry usually played at the end of a session. It calmed the boy and got him talking about positive ideas before he left. It was how Harry ended most of his sessions with the younger children.

While they chatted and played, Harry made a few mental notes of ideas to add to Ollie’s chart, the first being a suggestion for the boy’s grandmother to consider getting the boy a cat or a dog. He’d benefit from the companionship and steadiness of a pet, something that was always there for him when others couldn’t be. If Harry’s mind flashed with the image of a snowy owl, he brushed it aside to maintain his concentration on Ollie and the child’s problems.

Harry was a professional. It was what he did.

* * *

“Thanks now. See you next week!” Harry waved to Ollie and his grandmother as they descended the steps out of Grimmauld Place, and then he turned to go back into the house. It was his last appointment of the week, and he was knackered. All he wanted was a cold drink, a hot dinner, and an evening to relax.

He glanced at his watch and smiled. Even better. Luna’s final yoga class of the evening was about halfway through. He could join them for the second half and, hopefully, get her to make dinner with him after. There were some lovely benefits that came with sharing his house with one of his best friends; having a built-in yoga instructor and studio was one of them.

He dipped into his office to change into his shorts and t-shirt and then headed to what had once been a formal parlour in the old Black townhouse, now refurbished into a yoga studio with light-coloured wood floors and walls Charmed to look like a forest. There were at least a dozen people on the floor moving into Navasana or, as Luna was explaining to one of the new students, the Boat Pose. Harry moved to the back of the room and sat down on an empty mat. He got into the v-shaped position, leaning back slightly as he brought up his legs.

“And breathe,” Luna said lightly to the class, catching Harry’s eye and smiling. “Roll your shoulders back, and as you inhale, slowly lift your legs and hold. Remember to breathe slowly, in…and out…”

Harry followed Luna’s voice, using it to set his breathing pattern, feeling the stress and worries of his day, leaving his body as he breathed out. _Beautiful._

As they continued through the other poses, he let his body stretch and his mind calm. He smiled, thinking that if Snape had only known to teach Harry yoga all those years ago, they might have been successful at Occlumency lessons.

The class ended, and the students gathered their mats and tidied the room for Luna, some stopping to say a word or two to her before they left. Luna finally turned to him and gave him a smile, the kind that relaxed him in the same way the class had done.

“Are you done for tonight?”

He put a slightly sweaty arm around her, knowing she wouldn’t mind. “Yup. I was hoping you’d join me while I made dinner, and after, we could watch a movie.”

“Where’s Teddy?” she asked as they made their way up the staircase to their bedrooms to get cleaned up.

“It’s his night with the Malfoys,” he said, trying to keep the petulance from his voice. He encouraged Teddy’s relationship with his only living relatives, but he still hated his godson being away for a night or two every other weekend. The house always felt empty, but at least he had Luna.

“That’s nice.”

They paused outside Harry’s room. “So think about what movie you want to watch while we clean up?”

“Oh, Harry, I’m sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry as an eager smile crossed her face. “I can help you make dinner, but I promised Neville and Hannah that I’d stay the night with them. We haven’t had any time alone together in a few weeks. You know how Neville’s been with that Herbology conference he was preparing for, and Hannah’s been busy with the pub. It’s not often they both take the same night off, and honestly, I’m feeling a little horny.”

Harry blushed. He’d have thought that after living with Luna for three years, he’d be used to her bluntness. She’d been in a relationship with Neville and Hannah since before the two had married, and she was more than open about what the three of them got up to together. Harry might be gay, but he was only human, and the idea of all those hands and mouths in one bed was, well, interesting.

Still, he didn’t think he could share like they did. He wasn’t _that_ nice.

It did leave him alone for the evening, though. Maybe he’d see what Hermione and Ron were up to, or George. Yeah, he and George could go out on the pull for the night.

Or, he considered as he sat in his large, silent house three hours later, he could sit alone and lament his life choices. He rolled his eyes at himself and turned on the telly. Oh, MasterChef would be perfectly exciting for an evening, right? He leaned back and settled in for a quiet night alone with a bunch of wannabe champion chefs.

* * *

Saturday afternoon couldn’t come soon enough.

Harry listened to the waves hitting the sand as he worked himself through his private yoga routine. A white beach and palm trees surrounded him, contrasting with the dark, silent house, which had driven him into the studio.

Luna was still with the Longbottoms, Ron and George were at the shop for a busy early summer sale, and Hermione was pulling a double-shift at St Mungo’s.

Harry smiled at how different his life was from Hermione's despite them both being Healers.

He, a paediatric Mind Healer, worked part-time from his home. He gained patients by referral and arranged their appointments so that his work didn’t interfere with Teddy’s schedule.

Hermione, on the other hand, was the Department Head for the Magical Bugs ward at St Mungo’s. She was always on-call, and when there were important cases, she’d work through weekends and nights without consideration for her private life. She loved it, but now that she and Ron wanted a family… Well, something was bound to change. Harry just hoped she’d make peace with it when it did.

He leaned down, tucking his arms under his head, and pushed his knees up into the Sirsasana pose and held. His shoulder muscles tensed as he straightened his legs.

He chalked it up to his incredible inner tranquillity that he didn’t fall over when Ginny burst through the door.

“Harry! Oh, I’m sorry, am I interrupting?” Ginny sounded amused and not at all sorry.

Harry exhaled and lowered his legs, and then his knees, and finally his entire body into a huddle on the floor. He held up a finger to request another moment of silence—he probably owed his restraint at only choosing one finger to that inner tranquillity—and finished his breathing pattern, finally resolved to end his session early.

“Ginny, oh Harbinger of Chaos,” he finally breathed out, “what brings you to my humble abode?”

“Oh, fuck off,” she said with a laugh. “You’ve got really good at that, you know? Luna tried to get me into it, but I just couldn’t deal with all the Namaste-shite.”

“Right,” Harry said. He stood up to grab his towel and wiped off his face.

Ginny tossed him his leather pouch from the bench, and he draped it around his neck.

“I can’t believe you still carry that thing around.” Her voice softened. “It’s been nearly ten years since the war. You’re safe. Do you really need to have a bloody emergency kit with you everywhere you go?”

He shrugged, unembarrassed. “Yeah. It helps.” He pulled his shirt on over his head and tucked the bag underneath where it flattened out as though it were nothing. “You didn’t wander the country for most of a year hungry and helpless. If my packing a few meals and supplies into a little pouch of wizard space calms me, then what’s it to you?”

She frowned but reached forward to give him a little hug. “I’m sorry. You do what you have to do.”

"Don't we all?" he answered with a sad smile. Hoping to lighten the mood, he turned and led her from the studio into the kitchen. “So, did Blaise eat all your biscuits again, leaving you no choice but to run over here to go through my cupboards?”

“Ha-ha,” she said with a glare and walked to his cupboard, pulling down a tin of biscuits. “No, he learnt his lesson that time.” She sat at the table and took a bite. “You really do make the best biscuits. Just don’t tell Mum I said that.”

“Not a word, I promise.” Harry smiled and took a long draw of water from his bottle. “You seem to have convinced Blaise to take you more seriously. Teddy said he saw him at Malfoy’s bemoaning the dangers of women.”

“Well,” Ginny said, her face taking on a sly smile, “he couldn’t have been that scared since he gave me this last night.” She held her hand in front of Harry’s face, and his jaw dropped.

“Ginny, holy shit. That’s gorgeous. Really?” Harry looked up from the huge diamond and sapphire into the face of the woman with whom he’d once thought he was in love.

Her face glowed, brown eyes sparkling in that way he’d always admired and hair gleaming from sunlight coming through the Charmed kitchen window.

“Really!” She wiggled her fingers and brought them to her face, admiring her splayed hand. “He came to yesterday’s game, and after it was over—thank goodness we won—he asked for permission to approach me before I even left the field and got down on one knee in front of the entire stadium. It was ridiculous and over the top, honestly.”

“And you loved every minute of it,” Harry stated.

She looked up and grinned. “I really fucking did. Oh, Merlin, Harry. I’m getting married!”

Harry laughed and stood, taking her hand and pulling her into his arms. “Congratulations, Gin. You guys are perfect for each other.”

Ginny wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. “Thanks, love. You’re really happy for me? I mean, I know we’re good and stuff, but—”

His heart swelled, and gratitude overwhelmed him. Despite everything, they’d stayed friends. “I’m really happy for you. I love you, Ginny. Maybe not how we both wanted me to back then, but I do love you and want you to be happy.” He laid his cheek on the top of her head. “Now, do I get to be a bridesmaid?”

She burst out laughing and pulled back, looking up at him. “Ab-so-fucking-lutely.”

* * *

The thing about Draco Malfoy was that he was so bloody confusing.

He walked around like he had a stick up his arse ten feet long. He seemed to have no sense of humour, always raising one perfectly shaped eyebrow whenever Harry spoke, and he never appeared to relax. Ever. Harry had had to summon him for a late-night emergency with Teddy the previous year, and when Draco had appeared in the Floo, he'd brushed non-existent ash from his blue velvet smoking jacket and checked his perfectly groomed hair in the mantle mirror. Seriously. Blue. Fucking. Velvet. Smoking. Jacket.

Who the fuck wore that kind of thing? Draco bloody Malfoy, that was who. And yeah, so it irritated Harry even more that it suited Draco so well and that he looked bloody gorgeous in it. Arsehole.

But for all that he gave the impression of being the same rich, snooty, fit, pompous arse he’d always been, he’d clearly changed.

He not only worked for a living—even though he had an immense fortune at his disposal—but he actively managed his bookstore.

Harry crossed the busy West London street, his eye catching on Spellbound’s window display full of the latest bestsellers and a selection of how-to books for Pagan Muggles who felt drawn to their own form of spell-casting and magic.

Pulling open the door, Harry stepped out of the way of a couple of chattering teenagers and a mother with her toddler, who grasped a brightly coloured picture book. He gave the little girl a big smile and hurried in, relaxing when the street noise disappeared as the doors closed behind him.

Draco Malfoy—gorgeous, stuck-up, pompous, pure-blood ponce—owned a bookstore that catered to Muggles and magicals alike. For all intents and purposes, he and Harry should be great friends now, especially when you added in their shared interest in Teddy.

Their continued enmity made no sense. And yet—

“Potter—”

Right. There it was. That dry tone, that sarcastic drawl, and the disdainful snarl of his name. Harry took a deep breath, forced a smile, and reminded himself that Teddy hated it when they used last names on each other.

“Draco. How lovely to see you today. Is Teddy ready?”

“He’s in the back, talking with a boy he just met.” Draco’s glacial grey eyes seemed to thaw a bit as he added, “A boy who found the archway for the first time last week.”

Harry’s lips formed an O.

At the back of the shop, hidden from Muggles, a stone archway led to a separate area of books for wizards and witches.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Spellbound was what first met you when entering the magical section. Stepping through the arch, customers immediately encountered a display of books and pamphlets aimed at children who found their way through the pathway unknowingly: Muggle-born children.

The rumour was that Draco was responsible for at least two dozen Muggle-borns finding the magical world earlier than their Hogwarts letter and that he had set up subsequent informational sessions for their families. It made a difference. Headmistress McGonagall had been reporting for the last three years that many of her incoming Muggle-borns were better prepared, resulting in fewer withdrawals from Hogwarts. Minerva had even confided in Harry that she was working on setting up a more formal program, and had considered asking Malfoy to sponsor it before the Wizengamot.

Champion to Muggle-borns. Add that to the Draco Malfoy list of oddities.

“Right.” Harry gave Malfoy an awkward smile. “Well, I’ll just give him a few minutes while I look around.”

Draco watched him closely, a strange look on his face that Harry couldn’t make out. He assumed it was disgust at something unfathomable—his hair, or his clothes, or his general existence, probably—so he tried to ignore him as he made his way through the store to the cooking section.

The hairs on his neck prickled, but he knew it was likely Malfoy and decided to ignore him; that would irritate Draco, which made it a good choice.

“Potter, could you step to the back with me? I have something I’d like to discuss with you, and since Teddy is busy, this is as good of a time as any.”

Harry turned, wary of the sound of nerves in Malfoy’s voice. “Sure.”

He followed Malfoy through the archway and past the Muggle-born introduction table, where the room opened up around him. Wizarding books on all subjects lined the shelves. A couple of witches not long out of Hogwarts stood nearby, their urban Muggle clothing clashing with the older wizard in the next aisle wearing a pair of yellow trackie bottoms with a tight, purple floral jumper.

Most of the customers idled around the Section of Antiquities, a protected area where you could read and take notes on books that in previous centuries would have lined the private libraries of old pure-blood families. Most of those books weren't for sale as many were one-of-a-kind, but they were here, and they were available to everyone.

Harry spotted Teddy’s enthusiastic wave and signature blue hair in the children’s section and returned his greeting. The child who sat at the table with Teddy appeared around Teddy’s age, perhaps eight or nine. Dark blond hair surrounded a plump face, reminding Harry of a young Neville. Teddy turned back to the boy and the book they were both examining. Harry would have laid money on it being about Quidditch given Teddy’s eagerness.

Malfoy ushered Harry into a cosy but formal room, which Harry had never seen before. A domed ceiling let in filtered sunlight through the glass panes, lighting an old oak table that dominated the centre of the room, several chairs spread around it. Old tomes covered the walls, many behind protective layers of glass. These were older than the ones on the main antiquities shelves Draco kept open to the general wizarding public if the smell was any clue.

“What’s this?” Harry asked, his voice hushed. “I’ve not been in here before.”

Draco made a sound from behind him that, if Harry hadn’t known better, could have been a grunt. Surely, Malfoy hadn’t done something as uncouth as that. Harry smothered a smile.

Draco walked along the shelves, taking a cloth and adjusting a few of the books as he walked. “This room houses unique books. Some are only here until the people who requested that I procure them are able to pick them up, some are here for collectors to browse, some are part of my private collection for trustworthy clients to read but not remove from the store. They’re not uniquely magical books, but all are extremely valuable and need special care.”

Harry watched Draco as he spoke, intrigued by the man’s apparent passion for his topic. He’d only ever seen that look on Draco’s face when he talked to Teddy. It hit home how much this room, these books, this business meant to him. That look made something in Harry's stomach turn over funny-like, but he didn’t examine the sensation further.

“This one, for example…”

Draco nodded to an ancient tome protected under thick glass. “I only take it out for very special clients. It’s a ninth-century copy of Merlin’s _Tha Beatha Draoidheil_. We believe it was copied by one of his apprentices.”

Harry stared, in awe at being in the presence of one of Merlin’s works. He then watched as Draco turned to a book on the shelf between them, his eyes flashing brilliantly. This one wasn’t under glass. The pages, though old, looked crisp and in good shape, and the text looked aged but was actual print, not handwriting. Draco ran a pale finger across the engraved letters on the dark green leather. It read “Kinder- und Hausmärchen”, which Harry assumed was German.

“This one is a first edition _Children's and Household Tales_ by the Brothers Grimm. We usually refer to it as Grimm’s Fairy Tales now. It’s very rare in this pristine condition, though that’s likely because it’s been in the care of a wizarding family who were able to cast protective charms.”

Draco stared at it for several moments, the light from the ceiling dome shining off his pale blond hair. Finally, Draco cleared his throat and turned. “Anyway, Potter—” He cut himself off and took a deep breath. “Harry…”

Harry felt his hackles rise at the use of his first name. He tried to do it himself for Teddy’s sake, but Malfoy generally persisted with using Harry’s surname. For him to change it now meant he was up to something.

“I want to talk about adjusting our arrangement with Teddy. I'd like a larger role in his life.”

The air disappeared from Harry’s lungs.

Draco waited, but when Harry remained silent, he continued. “He’s getting older, and he needs to understand his family’s heritage. He needs to know where he comes from, the good and the bad, and he needs to learn some basic cultural etiquette that I’m more qualified to teach him.”

Draco, Teddy's blood family, wanted to take Teddy from Harry. _Fuck_. Harry felt like someone had punched him in the gut—no, like he was drowning. Yes, drowning was probably the better comparison. He couldn’t imagine what he looked like, but through his narrowing vision he saw that Draco must have read it as anger. If Harry could breathe, it probably _would_ be anger, but right now it was simply gasping for air.

Malfoy continued, unaware of Harry’s struggle. “You can’t keep him away from all this just because you don’t agree with it, Potter.” His voice had sharpened. He heaved out a breath, sounding as if he thought Harry was an idiot, which he probably did, given that Harry just stood there, not moving, not saying anything. “I’m not proposing that he live with me full-time, simply that I have more time with him than I do now. Are you even listening?”

It was a panic attack. Merlin, Harry hadn’t had one in over a year, and here he was in Malfoy’s bloody bookstore having a fucking panic attack. Malfoy stood across the room, still talking, but Harry couldn’t make out the words. The buzzing in his ears drowned it all out, but eventually, he managed to pull together the sense to drop his hands to his knees.

_Breathe_ , he reminded himself. _Slowly, breathe. Five things_. Five things he could see. The floor, that ugly book with the green cover, the door to the main part of the shop, slightly ajar, the oak table, Malfoy standing over him, saying something.

_Breathe_.

Five things he could smell. Books, lemony wax, mould, sandalwood, orange.

_Breathe_.

_Orange?_ He looked up. Malfoy was in front of him, his eyes narrowed and his mouth drawn but silent while Harry dealt with his attack.

_Breathe_.

The room came back into focus. He heard Malfoy breathing slowly but loudly, in and out. Harry matched his breaths. As his brain began to work again, his first reaction was to run. Grab Teddy and get out of here, going where no one would take Teddy away, where no one would see Harry like this, where they could be safe. But years of therapy, both as the patient and the therapist, had taught him these attacks were nothing to be ashamed of, that he would do best to just work through it at his own pace. Running would only make him dwell and worry and wouldn’t solve anything.

_Breathe_.

A chair screeched across the floor as Draco pushed it behind him. Harry sat.

_Breathe_.

Finally feeling steady enough, he looked up and met Draco’s eyes.

“My apologies, Malfoy.”

“Of course,” Malfoy drawled. “We don’t have to talk about this now.”

“No, no, I think we do.” _Breathe_. “I need to.” _Breathe_. “Go on.” _Breathe_. “Please.”

Draco nodded slowly. He kept his narrowed eyes on Harry and spoke in a firm voice. “Fine. At the moment, I take Teddy one night every other weekend. I’d like to take him for one full week a month, at least. I know you don’t approve—”

“Malfoy,” Harry cut off, his breath finally back to normal. His irritation rose along with his voice. “My feelings about you and your family have nothing to do with your relationship with Teddy. I trust you with him, and I know you wouldn’t teach him anything inappropriate.” Harry glared at the man standing in front of him. “Honestly, I’m royally pissed off you think _I think_ you would.”

Malfoy’s grey eyes flashed, his voice louder as well. “I don’t think you think that, and I don’t appreciate your putting words in my mouth. If you’d just bloody listen to me for once and stop cutting me off, you might find—”

It wasn’t Harry who cut him off this time, but a flash of light so bright that Harry had to cover his eyes. His only thought was, _Teddy!_ before everything went black.

* * *

_  
  
** Meanwhile... **  
  
_

Teddy sits at a table in Spellbound, chatting with his new friend, Alexander. They’ve figured out their birthdays aren’t far apart, and Teddy wants to introduce him to all the cool stuff so that they can be best friends when they get to Hogwarts. The other boy doesn’t like sports much, but that’s okay; Teddy doesn’t really care for football either, not when there’s Quidditch.

“So the Chasers, here”—he points to the moving images in the book—“they pass the Quaffle and try to get it through these hoops, but they have to be careful because the Bludgers will try to knock them off their brooms.”

“Wow,” Alex says, and Teddy likes the way he says it—like he means it.

“Do you think your parents will let you come to my house and me and my dad can show you how to fly?” He pauses. If Alex is going to be his best friend, he should know more about Teddy—like, the _real_ stuff. “He’s not really my dad, though. My real dad died. My mum, too.”

Alex gasps. “Oh, um, really? That sucks.”

Teddy nods. “Yeah. I was a tiny baby, though, so I guess it could have been worse, ‘cause I don’t remember it happening. I lived with my grandma for a while after that, and my godfather helped her, but then she died too, and now I live with my godfather.” Teddy waits for a reaction from Alex. Maybe he won’t like Teddy anymore because Teddy doesn’t have a normal family, but if so, Teddy supposes it’s best to know that now, right? That’s what Draco always says.

“Well, er, it sounds like you’re really lucky to have your godfather. Is he nice?”

Teddy smiles and feels his head tingle in pleasure. Alex’s jaw drops.

“Oh, sorry,” Teddy says with a laugh. “I’m a Metamorphmagus. That means I can do things like change my hair colour with magic. Sometimes it happens automatically, though.” He swipes a hand through what he knows is probably bright pink hair now—that’s his happy colour. “Anyway, my dad is the best. His name is Harry, and yeah, he’s my godfather, but I call him Dad. He’s so cool and so much fun, and he’s famous.”

“No way.”

“Yeah, right? Totally. But he doesn’t act that way at all.” He looks towards the room where he’d seen his dad go off with Draco. “He’s the guy I waved at. He and my cousin Draco, the guy you met earlier, went to school together, but they don’t really like each other.”

“Why not?” Alex asks, his eyes big as he leans forward, and Teddy just knows he can trust him.

Teddy stops to think about it. “I don’t know. I think it’s because of me because I always hear them argue about me and stuff.”

Loud voices reach them from the other room.

“See?” Teddy asks, and he feels his lower lip tremble, but he takes a deep breath and tries to keep Alex from seeing how much it bothers him. “I’ll be right back. Go get your parents and see if they can meet my dad, and we’ll get your number and stuff.”

Alex walks off, and Teddy moves closer to the open door, trying to hear what’s going on.

_“My feelings about you and your family have nothing to do with your relationship with Teddy,”_ his dad is saying.

Teddy freezes, trying not to cry because Alex will see.

_“I don’t think you think that, and I don’t appreciate your putting words in my mouth,”_ Draco shouts back.

Teddy closes his eyes, wishing beyond wishes that the two men in his life whom he loves more than anyone would just learn to get along.

A light flares.

Teddy cries out, and the room falls silent.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: _Into the Woods_ **

The first thing Draco Malfoy noticed as he gained consciousness was nature. Not just the sounds of what he recognised as the outdoors, like dogs barking, car engines humming, and people talking, but Nature—birds chirping, the wind blowing through branches, the distant babbling of a brook.

It didn’t make sense, and it surely wasn’t something he’d hear in the streets of London’s West End.

The second thing he noted was that he was lying on the ground, his face against grass, the musty smell of soil reaching his nose.

He let out a groan and began to push up. The sound of a grunt to his left drew his attention.

“Malfoy, what the fuck happened?”

 _Fuck_.

“Potter.” He opened his eyes and glanced at the sun filtering through the trees.

Potter pushed himself to his feet, his glasses askew and his scruffy hair falling from the band he used to pull it back so attractively these days. Draco couldn’t help but stare at Harry’s rumpled state and felt his body react. The blighter.

A note of panic entered Harry’s voice as his eyes darted. “Where’s Teddy? Where the hell is Teddy?” He ran through the trees at the edge of their little clearing and into a forest. “Teddy? Where are you? Teddy?”

Harry’s voice came with the rustle of branches and the crunching of leaves.

Draco stood, pushed down the twinge of panic in his stomach, and joined the call. “Teddy? Edward Remus Lupin! If you’re hiding from us, this is not funny, young man. Come out here.”

Draco picked up his pace, running through the trees, but there was no sign of anyone. He considered and returned to where he’d started, noticing the outline of his footprints in the damp earth, soon joined by the unmistakable imprint of Harry’s trainers. There were no small prints.

“Teddy’s not here.” Harry’s voice sounded odd as he approached, as though he were unsure whether to be relieved or horrified.

Draco nodded. “He didn’t leave any footprints, so however _we_ got here, I imagine he’s still back in the shop.”

Harry’s breathing quickened, and Draco raised a single eyebrow, hoping he could prevent another fit of panic by distracting the man. The one he’d had in the shop had been bad enough; Draco didn’t want to see another one out here in the middle of Merlin-knew-where. “I’m sure he’s fine, Potter.” He made his voice dry and droll. “I have capable staff, and Teddy knows to call the Weasleys or my mother if he’s ever someplace without one of us.”

Harry nodded, his breathing consciously slow and measured as he dropped down to sit in the soft mossy grass, uncaring as to whether he stained his jeans with mud. “Right.” He looked around. “So where the hell are we? Look at the trees. How the bloody fuck did we get here?”

Draco examined the unfamiliar foliage, rummaging through his memory of his past travels. “It’s definitely not Britain. It reminds me of some of the places I’ve been on the continent.” Switzerland? Austria, maybe?

“But somewhere so far away that the leaves are changing?” Harry’s brow furrowed. “Could we be in the Southern Hemisphere somewhere?”

Draco considered the seasons and shook his head. “No. It’d be nearly winter there, not early autumn.” He paused and took off his dark blue linen jacket, laying it on the ground to protect his tailored khaki trousers before he sat down. He folded himself onto it neatly next to where Harry sprawled, his legs spread out like a heathen. Draco rolled his eyes. “I’m assuming you had nothing to do with this, and as I know I had nothing to do with it, what in Salazar’s name do you think happened?”

Harry pulled the band from his hair, shaking out the dark locks before expertly re-wrapping them into a neat little tail that brushed the collar of his red jumper. “I’ve no bloody idea.” He glanced up at the sky. “It looks like late morning, and I reckon we’re not going to get anywhere just sitting around.”

Draco got to his feet, looking for a clue as to which way they should go. “Maybe we can reach a house and use a telephone or the Floo and get some bloody answers. If we’re as far into the middle of nowhere as I think we might be, we'll need to build a shelter for the night and find food, so get off your butt and let’s move.”

Without thinking, he put his hand out to help the other man up. Harry stared at it, making Draco’s face flush with the heat of embarrassment. If Potter turned him down—

Harry took the offered hand and stood, his palm warm and pleasantly firm, but not rough. Draco pulled his own back a moment too late not to be awkward before letting out a nervous cough.

“Right,” Harry murmured and then shook his head. “Uh, first, supplies. Do you have anything on you?”

Did he honestly just ask if Draco had supplies? Merlin, the man could be obtuse. “Sure, Potter, I wander around all the time with an entire pack of shrunken emergency supplies in my pocket. For Merlin’s sake,” he muttered under his breath. “No, I have no supplies other than my clothes and my wand.” He paused and let out a little sneer. “Do you?”

Harry’s face reddened, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, actually.” He got a sheepish expression on his face that reminded Draco of Teddy when he’d got caught absconding with a cake from the house-elves in between mealtimes. “I, uh.” Harry laughed and blushed. “I wander around all the time with an entire pack of shrunken emergency supplies in my pocket.”

Draco stared. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously.” Harry shrugged, and then straightened his back, raised his chin, and his bright green eyes met Draco’s.

Draco did not feel his groin harden at that look, not even a little. Really.

“The last year of the war, Ron, Hermione, and I spent most of it in the wilderness in a tent, moving from place to place, often with nothing to eat unless we found some berries or mushrooms or, a few times, some eggs to steal from a farm.”

He began walking through the cleared brush, and Draco hurried his step, following close beside him.

“After the war, if I found myself somewhere unexpected, I’d panic because I wasn’t prepared. My therapist—my Mind Healer—recommended I simply always be prepared so that it was one less thing I’d have to worry about.” He shrugged again. “It helped. So yeah, I have some blankets, tins of food, and some basic healing supplies shrunken down and hidden in my pouch.” He withdrew a leather pouch from around his neck and held it tenderly. “It’s not an endless supply, but it’s enough for a week or two if we’re careful. I can’t imagine we’ll be out here more than a day or so, right?”

The sunlight filtered through the trees, barely making it to the fallen leaves that the two men would be trudging through. There’d be no paths to ease their way. “Sure. A day or so.” He sighed and pushed forwards.

* * *

Draco hated this. He was sure that someone, somewhere, would pay money to experience something like what he and Harry were experiencing, with total isolation, rough conditions, and shitting in bushes, but that person was not a Malfoy. He blushed at the memory of what he’d been forced to do from the lack of a proper lavatory and thanked Merlin he was a wizard who had access to cleaning spells. Potter had known what he was doing, which had made it all the more challenging. _Ugh._

It was evening now, and he knew he was starting to be difficult. The complaints poured from his mouth; he couldn’t stop them. His feet hurt, he was hungry, he was tired, any number of insects had bitten him, and he just wanted to be home.

“Potter,” he said as he withdrew the water flask he’d Transfigured from a button, “no more. We have to stop for the night.” He took a deep breath and did the unthinkable. “Please.”

Harry’s pace slowed and then stopped at a copse of pine trees. He looked around the slight clearing before lifting his eyes to the darkening sky. “Yeah. Okay. I think the pines are good cover anyway.” Draco felt his shoulders relax before Harry added, “I’ll start setting up some wards to keep out any animals or intruders. Can you gather firewood?” allowing the reality of their situation to creep back in. He was going to sleep outside, in the wild, with Harry Potter.

“Firewood.” He hated feeling stupid and out of place. It made him snarky. “No more insight than that, Potter? Am I just supposed to know what that looks like, or do you have some tea leaves I can read the future in to find the answers _there_?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Malfoy,” Harry answered with a huff.

Draco couldn’t blame him, but dammit, how was he supposed to know what to look for?

Harry raised his wand. “ _Accio_ firewood.” A small gathering of twigs, branches, and dead logs flew towards Harry, making Draco duck out of the way. “I only gathered what was close. Logs, twigs, sticks like these are what you want. If you could find a bit more from farther off, it’ll keep us from having to look for it through the night. I’m worried about animals getting too close if we don’t have a fire, and I don’t reckon we’ll want to wander out looking when night falls.”

Draco nodded, watching as Harry cast protection spells around the area, and then moved off to gather the wood. It wasn’t hard once he knew what he was looking for, and it was only several minutes later that he returned, floating a decently sized pile before him. Harry looked and nodded and pointed to a stack by the nearest tree.

“Thank you,” Harry muttered and turned to finish building a ring of stones. He stacked wood, twigs and pine cones in the middle, with larger branches above them coming to a point. Harry saw him watching and explained, “The small stuff will catch easier, creating a bed of hot coals underneath. The heat will rise, and the stuff on top that’s larger will have time to catch fire. Once we get the big stuff going, it’ll be easier to keep it burning all night.” He turned to the pile and pointed. “Can you cast a Drying Charm on the load you just put down? It won’t be perfect, but it’ll definitely be better than just trying to burn it as it is.”

Draco nodded, silently grateful that he could help and that Harry was explaining without being asked. He cast the drying spells and listened as little hisses escaped the wood, water bubbling out along with them. He sat on the ground and watched as Harry cast a Fire Charm on the wood and the smaller branches began to burn just as predicted. “Did you learn to do that when you were on the run?”

Harry nodded. “Hermione taught me. She went camping with her family as a little girl.”

“Camping,” Draco drawled. The word sounded distasteful. “Is that something all Muggles do? Did you do it as a child?”

Harry tensed but shook his head. “No, I didn’t. It’s not uncommon among Muggles, but not all do it, no.” He sat next to Draco, leaving about two feet between them, and let out a sigh. “I’m starving.” He pulled out his pouch and looked over to Draco, the fire throwing shadows over his face. “I’ve got some fruit in here with preservation charms on them, and some tins of soup, beans… uh, I think I have some corned beef. Do you have a preference?”

Draco’s stomach rumbled. “An apple and some beans would be fine.”

Harry reached into his bag with his wand and withdrew the requested food. He took a moment to remove the shrinking and preservation charms on the apple and handed it to Draco. He repeated the process for himself, bringing out a pear, a can of tomato soup, and a couple of spoons.

“Thanks,” Draco said quietly. “You seem to have thought of everything.”

Harry withdrew a strange device and used it to open the tins. He removed the labels and nestled the cans amid the fire’s coals. “I’m just glad I have all this stuff, you know? Hermione used to give me shit for keeping the pouch, but my Mind Healer backed me up, so she let it go.”

He sat back, and they both remained quiet, watching the fire, occasionally taking bites of their fruit.

“That was back before I was a Mind Healer myself, and she didn’t trust my mental health as much.” He smiled and glanced at Draco. “And I obviously haven’t thought of everything, or I would have had a Portkey in here, and maybe a tent. I’ve been thinking about it all day, making a list of all the things I should have had in here that I forgot.” He hesitated. “If I were treating myself, I’d tell me to work on my meditation techniques right now and practise some self-care.”

Draco gave a little laugh at that. “It’s been quite a day. Was that a panic attack you had in the shop?”

Harry stared into the fire and then nodded. “I haven’t had one in a while, but when I do, it pushes me off-kilter for a day or so. My emotions are a little less stable until I can get myself centred again.”

“Makes sense.”

An unstable Potter. Draco wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that Perfect Potter wasn’t always perfect or to be concerned that the man next to him might not be as reliable as Draco needed him to be. He shook off the thought and remembered that even unstable, Harry was resourceful. As if to cement that thought, Harry stood and withdrew the food from the fire, wrapping the outside of the tins with cooling charms and handing one to Draco.

“So what do you do to…what did you call it? Centre yourself?”

Harry took a bite and seemed to consider the question while he chewed. “Well,” he said when his mouth was clear, “like I mentioned, I often meditate. Clear my mind, try to make it peaceful. Luna introduced me to yoga, as well, and that’s one of my favourites. It keeps my body in shape, but it helps my mind, as well.”

“Yoga?” Draco asked, seeming to remember Teddy telling him about it. “That’s some kind of twisty body exercise, right?”

Harry laughed, and the rich sound warmed Draco nearly as much as the fire in the cool night air. “Something like that, yeah. Teddy told you about it, then? That’s what he calls it.”

Draco felt a smile crossing his face at the thought of Teddy. “Yes.” He slowly stirred his beans, waiting for them to cool. “He adores you, you know.”

Something moved behind Harry’s eyes and disappeared before Draco could identify it. “Yeah. He’s amazing.” Harry took another bite of his food but didn’t say anything else.

“He’s going to be a Hufflepuff, I think. He’s loyal, and he seems to want to help everyone.” Draco considered whether to continue in the silence. “You’ve done a wonderful job with him.”

“I can’t talk about this right now, Malfoy,” Harry said, his voice tense. “I won’t discuss your taking him away from me when I don’t even know when we’re going to get back to him.”

Draco’s eyes snapped to Harry. Was that what the git was thinking, that Draco wanted to take Teddy away? The panic attack in the shop began to make more sense. “Harry,” he began, but Harry cut him off.

“Not now. I can’t talk about it.” Harry’s breathing was coming fast, and he’d set his food down and stood. “When we’re home. Gonna step away for a bit.” He reached into his pouch and withdrew a blanket, throwing it to Draco. “See what you can do with this to Transfigure it into some kind of shelter, okay?”

He walked away.

“Potter!” Draco yelled, starting to feel panicked himself.

“Just need a bit. I’ll be back,” Harry yelled as he disappeared into the trees.

Unstable Potter. _Damn._ Draco looked down at the blanket and took another bite of his beans, considering what to do next.

* * *

It took Harry over an hour to return. In that time, Draco had stoked the fire and managed to make a proper shelter. He’d duplicated the blanket into four more so that they’d have something to sleep on and under, then used the original to Transfigure into a tent. It would fit both of them, draping into a cube about six feet by six feet. He’d tried to make it bigger, but the size of the original blanket limited him. When he made it larger, it collapsed in on itself. Six feet would be enough, though.

He cast a Cushioning Charm on the ground and let out a groan when he sat on the magically softened grass and spread out the duplicated blankets. Removing his shirt, he cast a Freshening Charm and then hit himself with a Cleaning one before putting the shirt back on with a sigh. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better.

He took off his shoes and socks, repeating the process, and didn’t hear Harry approaching until the other man spoke. “Not bad, Malfoy.” Harry poked the walls of the tent. “Looks like it’ll hold.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Of course it’ll hold, Potter. I’m not an idiot.”

“No,” Harry murmured. “Look, sorry about earlier.” His face flushed, and his eyes refused to meet Draco’s. He turned towards the fire. “I’ll take the first shift tonight. You get some sleep.”

Draco had just finished putting his shoe on and stopped. “First shift?”

“To keep watch,” Potter answered, his voice matter-of-fact, as though he expected it was obvious.

“Keep watch,” Draco parroted. “The wards—”

“Will keep out things I know about, but we have no idea where we are or how we got here. Going to sleep with no one watching out seems like an unnecessary risk.”

Draco hated that Harry impressed him with that forethought, but he did, and damn if he didn’t find intelligence attractive. Stupid Potter and his stupid intelligence.

“Wake me up in a few hours, please,” Draco answered, not willing to admit he was grateful to get the first sleep shift.

Harry nodded and settled down by the fire. “Good night, Draco.”

“Good night, Harry,” he muttered and lowered the flap on the tent, drawing a blanket around him. He was asleep before he realised that he’d forgotten to take his shoes back off.

* * *

The next day, Draco used the silence of their walking to reflect on all that he’d learnt the night before.

He’d known Harry was a Mind Healer for children, and he’d known that he was an excellent father to Teddy, but he hadn’t realised how much those two facts made up the man's current identity. Harry seemed to use the Mind Healing in his day-to-day coping strategies. He didn’t just teach others to do it; he lived it himself. It was hard not to admire that, even if he was an irritating berk half of the time.

And then there was Teddy, Harry’s godson and ward. Draco had known, of course, that Harry had raised Teddy by himself after Andromeda’s death when Teddy was only three, and he’d known that Teddy adored his godfather. He hadn’t known exactly how important the boy seemed to be in Harry’s life—enough to trigger panic attacks at the mere mention of the child spending more time away from him. It made Draco concerned, actually, for what that would mean when Teddy headed to Hogwarts in two years. He supposed it wasn’t his problem, though. Teddy was his cousin, and as long as the boy was well, that was what mattered. There was no question that he was flourishing in Harry’s care.

Draco would never come between them. He only wanted to spend time with the boy, to teach him more of his family’s heritage and traditions, maybe give him some special preparation to help him perform better at school. Nothing Dark, of course, just things like Yule and Beltane celebrations, and how to properly introduce oneself in high society, or how to excel at Potions. He wanted to give Teddy every advantage, and since Harry and the Weasleys didn’t appear ready to do those things, Draco would. He just needed a bit more time with the boy to do so. But Harry’s reaction—Merlin, it just wasn’t reasonable.

Most confusing, perhaps, was Draco’s reactions to Harry.

Harry was an attractive man, there was no doubt about that, with his golden skin, athletic body, and dark hair tucked back into a tie at the nape of his neck. He was intelligent, kind, and competent, which Draco found appealing, but he was so bloody stubborn and insistent on doing things his way. He talked in his sleep and snored—Draco had learnt those bits during his turn keeping watch last night—and evidently, he was unstable and prone to panic attacks and jumping to conclusions. He seemed to be perfectly content spending all damned day in his head, leaving Draco to entertain himself, and Draco had just about had it.

“Potter. We must talk about something. I’m bored, and—”

“There’s something ahead,” Harry interrupted and stopped walking, putting his arm out to prevent Draco from going any farther.

“What?” Draco squinted.

“There’s a clearing of trees, as though there might be a road or something.”

Draco’s hopes began to swell. “Thank Salazar. Come on.” He started forward. “I’m ready to get out of this place.”

Harry grunted but followed, his footsteps coming up behind as they reached a cart path rutted into the road. “We need a plan,” he said, keeping Draco from proceeding. “We don’t know what we’ll find.”

Considering the merit of Harry’s words, Draco nodded. “Muggle or wizard, we have to be prepared.”

“Or something else entirely,” Harry agreed. “There aren’t only two types of beings in this world, Malfoy.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Save the lecture, Potter. I’m quite aware. So we go in Muggle. We’re two travellers who’ve lost our way and our gear, and we’re hoping they have some way to help us contact home.”

Harry shrugged. “Yeah, that should work. If you see anything that you think says magical, hint about the Floo or something. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

* * *

_** Meanwhile... ** _

He watches the two men, one dark, one fair, begin to walk down the path that will eventually lead to the small cottage deep in the forest. He knows what lies there. He nearly cackles at the idea of what they’ll find.

He’s intrigued. He can smell their magic and knows they don’t belong here. They’re not the first of their kind he’s encountered, but they’re the first in a long, long time, which means that he’s had a long, long time to plan.

If they’re weak, if they’re stupid, they’re of no use to him. If they can manage _her_ , though, perhaps they’ll be the answer to what he needs—to what he wants. Perhaps they'll be _useful_.

He watches, and he waits, and he refines his plans.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: _Granny’s Cottage_ **

A shiver ran up Harry’s back as the forest thinned. He paused to scan behind him, then above, and to the sides. He fully expected to see someone watching, but there was no one.

“Hold on,” he muttered.

Draco raised an eyebrow but remained silent and waited as Harry took out his wand.

“ _Homenum revelio_ ,” Harry whispered, spinning his wand in a slow circle around them. A swoop of air brushed his skin once, twice, three times, telling him there were three people someplace in front of them, but nothing close enough to warrant whatever else it was he was feeling. He peered ahead and thought he could make out the shape of a building through the trees.

He asked quietly, “Do you feel that?”

Draco stared and gave a slow nod. “I thought it was just me. It feels…dark.”

“Yeah. I don’t like it.” He glanced at the man beside him. Malfoy was looking a little worse for the wear after two days in the wilderness, his usually meticulous clothing rumpled, his white-blond hair falling into a not-so-pale face. It seemed the periodic sunshine coming through the trees was lending him some colour. It looked good on him.

Harry tore his gaze away and fixed it on the trail of smoke peaking through the canopy. “There are three people up ahead,” he said.

The path bent slightly to the right, and as the trees fell away, they revealed a small cottage. He let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, yet the tension in his shoulders persisted.

“Keep your wand hidden but handy. We don’t know that the darkness has anything to do with them, but there’s no reason not to be prepared.”

“I know how to handle myself, Potter. Don’t worry.” Malfoy’s voice was annoyingly condescending, so Harry ignored it and kept walking.

The cottage’s thatched roof and wood exterior reminded Harry of the older homes scattered throughout remote villages in the British countryside. The sun shone over a tidy kitchen garden and a couple of outbuildings. The larger, a barn, was in good repair, and the smaller was no bigger than an old shed, but the walls were stone, and there was a chimney. Harry guessed it might be some kind of smokehouse.

“Any clues from the look of this where we might be?” he asked Draco under his breath.

Draco shook his head. “None, though I still think it feels like Austria or Switzerland. Maybe Germany, I’m not sure.”

“Great.” Harry met Draco’s grey eyes. “Do you speak any of those languages?”

“Nope,” Draco said, popping the P as he said it. “French, Russian, and Hindi. I’m passable in Spanish.”

Harry rolled his eyes but figured that Harry’s law (who was Murphy and why did he get a law, anyway? It was Harry’s law in his head) dictated that this situation wouldn’t get such a lucky break as speaking the correct language. “Right. Well, hopefully, we can communicate somehow.”

Draco sighed, his eyes and head rolling like the drama queen he was. “Potter. There’s a translation spell that will cover us for the basics. It’s sometimes a little off, but we’ll be able to get by.” He pulled out his wand and raised an eyebrow. “Do you trust me to cast on you?”

Harry levelled a glare. “Of course I do.” He waited while Draco stood there, staring, and wondered if Malfoy would trust Harry to cast on him in return. “Go on.”

Draco cleared his throat and cast the spell. Harry felt a tickle in his ears and throat as the magic took hold and watched Draco repeat the charm on himself.

“So I just talk as normal?”

“Yes. They’ll hear their language, and you’ll hear yours. If you try to think about it too hard, though, your native language will push through and break the charm, so just go with it.”

Harry nodded. “Fine, let’s do this.”

He turned and slowly made his way along the cart path. The gate of the old picket fence screeched as Harry stepped through. He didn’t detect any magical wards or spells, and he sighed as the tension faded. Harry and Draco could handle Muggles.

The cottage’s tidy appearance, with fresh paint and orderly flower boxes, was appealing. _Really_ appealing. It made Harry want to relax and settle in for an afternoon and enjoy time with an old friend. Which was weird, but maybe he just really enjoyed the quaintness of it all.

Draco stepped forwards and knocked on the door. “This is really nice,” the man said under his breath, and Harry smiled.

The door opened, and Harry looked down at an old woman, her round face smiling as she welcomed them. She reminded him of Molly, short and plump and motherly—though much older, given her silver hair and withered face—and he had the impulse to sit down at her table and listen to her stories and eat her food. “Hi. We’re lost, and we were wondering if you had a way of communicating with the nearest village or town? We got separated from our group.”

The woman looked between them, and then turned and whispered something to someone behind her. Harry heard rustling in the room out of sight, and the woman turned back with a smile. Thoughts of sweet desserts and warm hugs fluttered through Harry’s mind. This woman was not a threat, and he saw Draco give her an easy, pleased smile that likely matched Harry’s.

“Well, dears, don’t stand outside all day. Come in, come in. You must be hungry and tired.” She ushered them into a cosy kitchen. Herbs hung from the walls, and clay pots lined the shelves. A large hearth dominated the room, but there was no stove, no sink, no modern conveniences. Harry loved it.

“I’m Winifred, and this is my granddaughter Greta.”

Harry turned to see a small child. She stood by the hearth, waif-like and timid. Her dark blonde hair hung over her face as she stared at her feet.

“She’s mute, dears, so don’t mind her. She’s a good girl, but a bit slow.”

Something in Harry's mind told him to grab onto those words and hold them, think about them, turn them over. The warmth in his chest dissipated, but he maintained his smile and complimented Winifred on her home.

“Well, thank you, young man. I don’t get a lot of company out here, so you’re both quite welcome visitors.”

She guided them to the table, and Harry sat in one of the most comfortable chairs he’d ever encountered. It hugged his hips and arse, and a slight groan of relaxed pleasure escaped from the man sitting beside him. Draco's praising smile lit the room almost as much as the bright sunshine pouring through the windows. Draco and Harry rarely agreed on things like this, and Draco should consider the rustic nature of the place to be beneath him. Shouldn’t he?

Harry narrowed his eyes as Draco spoke with the woman, asking her about the local towns and villages (at least a day’s walk to the east) and any neighbours (none closer than the village). Draco’s face held a look of contentment and happiness that Harry had never seen on it before.

The thin child stirred a pot over the fire, and something in Harry’s head… _popped_.

He blinked, closed his eyes, opened them, and tried not to gape.

The shape and size of the kitchen remained the same, but everything else had changed. The bright walls and happy pots were replaced with smoke-stained whitewash and jars that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Snape’s potions shelves, though the eyeballs floating in one looked more human than Snape’s jar of frogs’ eyes.

Harry shifted in his hard, wooden chair, and tried to pay attention to the conversation, but his gaze kept getting drawn back to the child, still painfully thin, the only thing in the room other than he and Draco that hadn't changed.

Winifred had turned into a crone. She reminded Harry of the hag he’d seen that time in Knockturn Alley, and his mind dredged up everything he could remember about hags. They were related to humans, but had limited types of magic, and… He searched for the critical element and grasped onto it. Children. They ate children.

Harry glanced again at the girl. He flashed back to the revealing spell he’d cast from the forest. _Three._ There had been three people here before he and Draco had arrived. The hag, the girl, and…?

“Excuse me,” he asked, his voice sweet and happy. It made his skin crawl. “We’ve been travelling all morning, and I really feel the need to, uh, refresh myself.”

Winifred smiled, and the spell tried to reinsert itself. The pleasant veneer flickered with the hag’s scarred and warted face. “The necessary, my dear?”

Harry cocked his head but went with it. “Yes, please.”

“It’s outside by the barn, just beyond the garden. Take these corn husks with you for after, yes?”

Harry sincerely hoped he wasn’t supposed to use those as toilet paper, but thanked her. “I’ll be right back, Draco.”

“Of course you will, my dear,” Winifred answered, as Draco seemed too distracted with the pleasantness of the cottage to pay Harry any attention.

Determined to move quickly before Draco could get into any trouble, Harry stepped around the side of the cottage and out of the way of any windows and cast another _Homenum Revelio_. Three people in the cottage and…one in the smokehouse. Right. The windowless building loomed in the shadows of crooked trees, its stone walls stained from years of smoke and rain and filth. Harry raised his wand and slowly opened the door.

Light crept through the crevices of the door and the cracks around the chimney.

“Hello?” Harry called out, squinting in the darkness.

“Help!” a small voice answered, weak and tired.

Harry lit his wand.

The light fell over a cage, in which sat a rotund boy, his knees hugged to his chest.

Harry ran to him. “What’s happened to you?”

The boy sobbed. “Help,” was all he could get out, though Harry might have heard the word “sister” once.

Harry snuffed his wand.

A wave of magic rushed over him—his entire body covered in tingling, invisible drips—and everything went dark.

* * *

Draco sat at the table in the charming cottage and drank in the woman’s motherly attention. She reminded him of a cross between his mother and Madam Pomfrey—her manners brisk, but soothing. He wanted to ask her more questions, about the girl, and what she did out here by herself, but he kept deciding that it wasn’t important. What was important was that he was so comfortable after travelling so far.

When Harry left to use the lavatory, Draco realised that the house had no plumbing, and wasn’t that just quaint? He should get a place like this, just to get away from the city to the peace and tranquillity of the countryside.

The girl, a tiny slip of a thing, brought him a bowl of stew and a hunk of bread. She set it before him without meeting his eyes and placed a similar bowl in front of Harry’s seat, although he had yet to return.

Merlin, he must have had some stomach ache to be gone so long, or perhaps he’d just been holding it so that he didn’t have to squat in the bushes as he’d instructed Draco to do.

The older woman took a spoonful of her stew, and Draco dipped his spoon into his own appetising dish of beef and vegetable broth. He got his food halfway to his mouth when the woman seized.

He jumped, his chair clattering to the ground, and rushed to her.

Foam ran down her chin as she shook and fell to the floor, her spoon still held tightly in her hand. The girl stood by the fire, her pale-blue eyes wide.

“Run outside and get my friend,” said Draco. “We need to help her.”

The girl just shook her head. No.

Draco stared. “Don’t you want to help her?”

No.

“Why not?”

The girl held her hands to her neck and then pointed at the woman, and back to her neck, and she began to cry.

“Did she hurt you?”

The girl nodded.

“Did _you_ hurt _her_?”

The girl shrugged, pointed to the woman’s stew, and then to Draco, and back to the woman.

Draco frowned. “The stew. Was there something in it? Was I supposed to get sick?”

She nodded. She had saved him.

With a final jerk, the woman’s eyes closed, her breathing laboured and shallow. Draco nudged her with his foot. She didn’t move, but the room wavered. Disorientation washed over him. He bent and touched her hand. Someone else appeared beneath what must have been a Glamour, a façade.

A hag came into focus, and the entire cottage changed. With sudden certainty, he realised how deep under the creature's thrall he’d been.

He glanced back at the girl, still the same. “Did she take your voice?”

The girl nodded, crying, and he tried to give her a reassuring smile. “Do you have anything you need to take with you? We’ll get you out of here. I just need to find my companion—”

The girl gestured to the door where Harry had left, and his stomach sank. “Has he been gone long? I’ve lost track of time.”

She nodded, her eyes sad. _Fuck_.

“Take me to him?”

She looked down at the hag.

“Turn around for a moment?”

The girl frowned but turned.

Draco pointed down and whispered, “ _Incarcerous_.” The ropes bound the hag, but as he reached to pick her up, he noticed she’d stopped breathing. Swearing, he used his wand and moved her into the corner, hoping Harry would have an idea on what to do with her—if he was all right, that was. Merlin, how long had he been gone? How long had Draco been under a spell?

“Okay, take me to him.”

The girl took his hand, pulling him out the door and down the path away from the cottage. He turned back and saw that the hag’s spell had covered the entire place, not just the interior. Where he’d previously seen a welcoming, comfortable abode, he now saw a sinister cabin, the darkness of its owner’s magic creeping into the walls and shutters and roof. The basics of the home were the same: the same thatched roof, the same well-kept exterior, the same picket fence, but malice and fear hung about it, and Draco had been around enough Dark Magic to feel the taint of it that would never lift.

The girl pulled on his hand, and he followed.

Beyond the kitchen garden, tucked off to the side of the barn was what Draco assumed was some kind of meat-curing shed built of stone. The idea of what type of meat the hag might have cured made bile rise in his throat, but he swallowed it down. He looked at the girl. “Did she have anyone else I should worry about?”

She shook her head, her eyes big; she pointed into the shed. Tears rose to her eyes, and her mouth formed a word: Bitte. _Please._

“My companion. He’s in there?”

She shrugged, and then she nodded and gave another shrug. She didn’t know, but _someone_ was.

“Harry?” Draco called out. “Harry, are you in there?”

“Help!” cried a voice much too young to be Harry’s, and Draco understood. There was another child here. “Please help me.”

The girl huddled on the ground, her face in her hands.

Taking advantage of his moment of privacy, Draco cast a quick Detection Spell, matching the _Revelio_ that Harry had cast when first approaching the cottage, then remembered. There’d been three people. Well, he’d found the third, and it appeared that he’d found Harry.

“I’m coming in. Should I be concerned about any traps?”

The child’s voice, a boy, called back. “I don’t know. There’s another man here. He had a light on a stick, and when he tried to shake the stick and say something, he got stuck. He was mad for a while, but I can’t understand him, and now he’s just staring.”

“Bollocks,” Draco muttered. It sounded as though Harry was under some sort of magic-suppression ward. Draco’s father had had several of those in his dungeons and had explained that they could be taken down relatively simply if you didn’t get caught in them. The problem was that Draco didn’t know which one was used here.

“Harry?” he called out again. “Harry, it’s Draco. I need you to talk to me.”

A faint voice answered him. “Malfoy?”

Relief flooded him. “Yes, it’s Malfoy. I need you to tell me what happened when you entered. When did it catch your magic, and what did it feel like?”

He heard a grunt on the other side of the door, and Harry’s voice became stronger. “It was when I tried to cast _Nox_. It was fine with my _Lumos_ , but maybe that’s because I had it cast before I came in. It felt like that prickling feeling you get when your leg falls asleep, but all over.”

“Can you still feel it?” Draco asked, hopeful. He was familiar with that ward, if so.

“Yeah. It’s bloody uncomfortable. And it itches.”

“Got it. Okay. Hang on, and don’t move.”

“Right. I’ll just cancel my evening dancing plans and wait right here,” Harry said. Draco relaxed a bit at the spark of irritation in the response. A sassy Potter was a healthy Potter.

He moved his wand in a complicated pattern that his father had once drilled into him, pointed, and said, _“Finite Praetereo!_ ”

He waited a moment then heard a noise inside. A muttered _“Alohomora,”_ followed seconds later, and the door swung open. Harry stepped out, his arm supporting a young boy. The boy’s hair and eye colouring suggested he was the girl’s brother, but his immense size left Draco gaping. Draco helped Harry walk him to the girl who jumped and threw her arms around the large boy. The boy spoke to her quickly and in her ear; she nodded, and they both turned to Draco.

“You’re magic,” the boy said. Draco looked at Harry.

“What’d he say? I can’t understand anymore,” Harry asked.

“He asked if I’m magic.”

Harry laughed, his tone harsh and cutting. “They were locked up by a hag and saw us cast. I think the cat’s out of that bag, don’t you?”

Draco rolled his eyes but had to concede the point. He looked at the boy. “Yes.”

“Can you help my sister? The witch stole her voice and didn’t feed her. She was going to eat us.” His left hand shook as he spoke, but the arm around his sister was steady and strong. “Please heal her.”

“We can try,” he said quietly and translated for Harry. The man was a Healer, after all, even if only a Mind Healer.

“I have a Faucium Potion that will likely help, but I’m not sure what it’ll do to a Muggle.”

“It should be safe. It heals most chest and throat wounds.”

Harry withdrew an orange bottle from his pouch and handed it to Draco. “Tell her to drink half of the bottle without stopping. It’ll taste terrible, but it’ll be worth it.”

The girl took it and drank.

Harry watched, and said, without looking at Draco, “I like it when you call me Harry. And thanks for coming for me.”

Draco’s heart raced and his face flushed, but then he remembered what he’d left in the house. “Merlin, Potter, what the fuck were you thinking? Just leaving me in there like that, not clueing me in, not taking me with you, nothing?” He heard his voice rising but couldn’t seem to stop himself. “We could have both been killed. Did you know that was a hag in there?”

“Shut it, Malfoy. Yes, I knew it was a hag. I figured it out when I was inside and reckoned I could step out for a moment. I knew there was someone else here and wanted to find them while you were distracting her.”

He got up in Harry’s face. “Entranced by her, you mean! Fuck! She could have killed me!”

“She didn’t! We’re okay, and the kids are safe, and—” Harry stopped and looked around. “Where are the kids?”

Draco stepped back from Potter. It was all gone: the children, the shed, the cottage. It was just Harry and Draco in a field surrounded by forest.

“What the hell _is_ this place?” Harry whispered.

“I don’t know. It could just be the hag’s magic fading now that she’s dead, but…”

Harry’s gaze snapped to Draco’s. “You killed her?”

“No! And don’t look so horrified. She was going to kill _us_ …and _eat_ those children. She poisoned our stew, but the girl swapped them around, and it killed the hag instead. Merlin, save me from over-principled Gryffindors.”

“Sorry,” Harry muttered. “But the kids—”

“Potter, there’s no one here. It doesn’t look like there’s ever been anyone here but us.” Draco’s stomach turned at the thought. “I don’t want to stay here anymore. Let’s keep going. I want to be far from this spot by nightfall.”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”

* * *

_** Meanwhile... ** _

He hangs back as the two men walk by.

He can smell the taint of the Dark Magic slowly fading, and despite himself, he’s impressed. It’s not simple for a human to resist the allure of the hag’s magic, to break through and see the truth behind it. And the children. They’d cared to save the children.

Yes. They’ll do nicely.

He follows them, and when they set up their fire and their shelter for the night, he hangs back and listens as they speak of their home and of a child named Teddy, and he smiles because he knows now what he’s going to do.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: _Magic Beans_ **

Harry handed Draco the hot tin of steak and kidney pie and smirked at the look of dismay on the blond’s face.

“You can’t honestly expect me to eat this, Potter.”

“I can, and I do. It’s delicious and filling. Neither of us ate much today, so it’ll do you good.” He handed over the opened tin of peaches as well as a fork. “Look, I’m not saying that it’s homemade or that it’s something your house-elves would make, but it’s seriously not that bad. Give it a go.”

Draco stared at it like he expected it to grow legs, which maybe he did, and then stabbed a piece of meat and smelled it. He closed his eyes and put it in his mouth. He chewed slowly and then opened one eye and glared at Harry. “You could have told me it was good.”

“Fuck you.” Harry laughed. “You’re such a bloody princess sometimes.”

“Whatever. I’m not the one who needed rescuing today.”

That was the thing about Malfoy. He couldn’t ever let anything go. Once he had something on you, he pounded you with it until you wanted to pound _him_. “Shut it or tomorrow I’ll just give you the tinned fish.”

Draco turned slightly green and shut his mouth. Perfect.

Harry picked up his own tinned pie and took a bite, nearly humming when it hit his tongue. It wasn’t amazing or anything, but it was hot and creamy and filling, and he was starving. And tired. And physically exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to be home with Teddy, learning to bake a tart with his godson or cuddled on the sofa together, watching a movie.

A flicker of magic at the edge of Harry’s wards made him tense and draw his wand.

“What is it?” Draco asked, his food shoved aside and his wand out.

“There’s someone coming. It got through the wards, so it’s one of those somethings I didn’t know to prepare for.”

“Harry…” Draco’s voice tremored.

“It might be friendly, so let’s just wait and see. Don’t attack right away,” Harry said quietly.

They waited, poised, wands ready for nearly a minute before a voice yelled out to them from beyond the trees. “Ahoy there, friends. Please put your wands away. I mean no harm. I’m just a traveller and saw your wonderful fire and heard your friendly banter. I was hoping I could rest my feet with you?”

Harry looked at Draco. “What do you think?”

“He can come up, but I’m not lowering my wand just yet.”

“Right,” Harry muttered. “Keep yours up, but I’ll lower mine. We’ll show that we’re willing to try.”

Draco nodded and yelled into the night, “You may share our fire, friend, but the night is dangerous, and we’ll lower our wands when we feel safe.”

A short man stuck his head out from around a tree and smiled. “Understandable.” He held his hands out in front of him as he approached. “Truly. I mean you no harm.”

The light from the fire fell upon him. The friendly but unattractive face surprised Harry. If the man’s magic was like the hag’s, at least he wasn’t trying to make himself appealing with a glamour. Larger than most of the goblins, but smaller than most men, his height matched Ginny, as did his slight build. His straggly brown hair hung past his shoulders, and his hooked nose and protruding forehead conveyed the impression of goblin heritage. His smile, though, was friendlier and more open than anything Harry had ever seen on a goblin.

Draco took the lead. “Be welcome at our fire, friend, and share our hospitality.”

The goblin hummed at the final word. “I accept your hospitality and respect it with my thanks.”

Harry cocked an eyebrow at Draco, but Draco waved him off. Harry would have to grill him later. Whatever had happened, though, Draco sighed and put his wand away, and then picked up his tin and offered it to the goblin.

“No, no, I couldn’t take the meal from your plate, but I wouldn’t say no to a bit of something else if you have it.”

Draco looked to Harry and nodded, so Harry shrugged and Summoned another tin from his pouch. He opened it and set it in the coals.

“How is it you come here, friend?” Draco’s voice was curious, but firm, and accentuated the word friend again. He seemed to be using it as a name. Weird. “We’ve not encountered anyone so far in our travels.”

The goblin nodded. “True enough. You’re far from any settlements.” He looked in the direction they’d come from and then back to them. Harry thought he saw something flash in the goblin’s gaze, but then it looked friendly again, and Harry almost thought he’d imagined it. “I recommend you avoid the hag’s cottage if you encounter it, however. She’s a nasty sort and lures in the wayward traveller.”

Draco almost choked on his food, but he took a drink and smiled. “Thank you for the advice. We’ll make a note of it.”

“Good, good,” the goblin said and smiled as Harry handed him his heated food. “Ah, thank you, kind sir.”

They ate in comfortable silence for several minutes before the goblin finally wiped his mouth and smiled. “If you don’t mind me mentioning, friends, I think it’s obvious that you’re not from here, and I feel you are lost.”

Harry's fingers moved to his wand, but Draco’s hand fell on his arm. “Where is _here_? You’re correct; we’re lost, but we’re unsure how far from home we truly are.”

The goblin nodded. “I’d say it’s best to describe this place as a land far away from whence you came. We, the people here, are used to the magical and fantastic, but we have nothing like your strange clothing and tins of pre-made food.”

Harry remembered the hag’s hand-made dress and the homespun look of the children’s clothing.

“I bring this up because I’d like to help you. You seem like nice men, good people, and I’d like to assist you if I can.”

“But…?” Draco prodded.

The goblin laughed. “You don’t disappoint me, friend. You are clever. _But_ to help you get home, I need you to perform a service.”

Harry heard Draco mutter, “Of course, you do,” under his breath, but he smiled and nodded. “Go on.”

“I have a magical device. It’s Charmed to return the holder to their home when they say the words to trigger it. No matter where they are, what universe, what time, it returns them home.”

“But…” Draco said again.

“But”—the goblin nodded—“I gave it to an old woman several years ago in return for a favour she performed for me. She would give it to her grandchildren when they were young, in case they needed to get home quickly, but now her grandchildren are grown, and she’s long since finished using it. For your sake, I’d like it back. Alas, the magic of the gift I gave her prevents me from requesting its return. I can tell you where she is, but you’ll have to go to her and obtain it. She’s an old woman, and she rarely leaves her home. It’s likely gathering dust in some forgotten drawer.”

It sounded a lot like a Portkey, but one that didn’t depend on a specific destination, only an idea of home. Harry opened his mouth, ready to consent, but Draco cut him off. Again. Obviously, Draco knew more than Harry did about this goblin, so Harry sat back and watched. And really, Draco was kind of sexy when he took charge like this. Well, sexy and irritating, but that was kind of how Malfoy was in general, right?

* * *

Draco glared at Harry, willing him to shut his mouth and let him do this. Thankfully, the git got the hint and sat back as the current facts spread out in Draco’s mind.

Fact one, they were someplace _other_ than their home; a place with magic and guest rites and magical beings that respected the ancient rules.

Fact two, they’d been ensnared and almost eaten by a hag in the forest with two small children, a boy and a girl. Something in the details of that tickled Draco’s brain, but he set it aside for now. The half-goblin was watching him closely, and he needed to work fast.

Fact three, then, was this goblin, offering help in exchange for the procurement of a device. He’d come upon them out of nowhere and knew more about them than Draco was comfortable with, but he seemed friendly. But then, don’t they all seem friendly at first?

Draco looked up, the pieces clicking closer together and forming an idea, a hypothesis that gave him chills, but it was one that if he could prove, he thought he could work with.

“Thank you for the offer, friend,” he finally answered, “but we must think about it a bit. I don’t generally make arrangements with those I’ve just met, especially those whose name I don’t know. May I ask yours?”

The man laughed congenially. “True enough, friend. True enough. You’ve been quite kind offering me food and a place at your fire. Please take your time and consider.” He turned his attention from Draco to Harry. “So tell me, friend, in this place you come from, are you a great warrior?”

It hadn’t escaped Draco’s attention that the goblin had avoided answering the direct question about his name, and more than anything, it persuaded Draco as to the legitimacy of his theory and allowed him to set up his mental chessboard around it. If he was correct, and he intended to confirm it before proceeding, then the man wasn’t half-goblin after all…he was half-Fairy. And Fairies had their own set of rules.

They were more dangerous, true, but if you knew the rules, you could use them to your advantage.

He tuned in to the conversation when he heard the word “child”. He looked up sharply as the being smiled. “Yes, if I had a child to return to, I’d be most eager to get home as well. Is he young, your Teddy?”

Ice spread through Draco’s body, and he saw Harry stiffen as well. “We didn’t tell you his name,” Draco said, his voice as cold as he felt.

The being’s smile faltered, but he shrugged. “If you didn’t mention him, how would I know?”

“How, indeed?” Draco asked. “We invited you to our fire, we offered you food and hospitality, and yet you bring up our young charge. Should we feel threatened…” He paused to add dramatic emphasis, to make the being wait for his final word, and then let it ring out into the night air. “…Rumpelstiltskin?”

If he’d expected a reaction from Harry, he’d have been disappointed, but the being, the Fairy, hissed and let the friendliness fall from his face.

“Rude!” the Fairy cried out, jumping to his feet. “I have not given you leave to use my name, and you are rude to do so.”

“Not nearly as rude as to use the name of, to threaten, the child in our care. I know of you, Rumpelstiltskin, and your affinity for children.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes narrowed. “Then you know I care for them and would not harm them.”

“But you would take them. You will not take ours.” Draco paused, refusing to look at Harry as he moved the piece on his chessboard. “I am ready to make our deal with you.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s gaze did not fall from Draco’s, but he sat down and pulled the congenial veneer back over himself. “I enjoy deals,” he said politely. “Do go on.”

“If we make this deal, we will obtain the device you mentioned, and you will show us how to use it to get home. You will have the device as your own, then, but you must never have any contact with us again, nor those we know or care for or love. You will leave us and all those around us alone and never interfere with any of our lives. No harm, no interference, no contact. Our arrangement will be complete, as will our association.” Draco thought through his words, looking for any loopholes. Fairies loved loopholes. He saw none and nodded.

The Fairy scowled but tapped his fingers on his knee. “I’ll take you to your world so that I can have the device, a magical spindle, back after you use it, and then I can use it to return me here. And I’ll concede to your requirements.”

Draco ignored Harry’s angry cry, not moving his eyes from the being in front of him. “Rumpelstiltskin,” he said, “my companion and I will attempt to retrieve your magical spindle with directions from you on where to find it. If we are successful, we will return the spindle to you, and you will use it to return us to our home. In return, you agree you will never harm, interfere with, or contact us, those we love, those we know, those who will be our descendants, forevermore. Our arrangement and association will be complete.”

“I, Rumpelstiltskin, agree to your terms.” A puff of magic tightened around Draco and then disappeared. The Fairy relaxed and picked up his fork, eating his tinned pie as though nothing had passed.

Harry, however, turned to Draco, his jaw clenched. “What the fuck did you just do?”

“Made a deal with a Fairy,” said Draco under his breath. “Now shut up and let’s get some information on how to find this spindle. You can unleash your Gryffindor fury on me after he’s gone and I’ve had a chance to explain.” He addressed Rumpelstiltskin. “Now, friend, tell me about this spindle and the old woman who has it.”

* * *

_** Meanwhile... ** _

He leaves the fire quite pleased with the deal he's made with the two men. The fair-haired man was clever, it is true, though he thinks the darker one had a better understanding of the situation, even if he didn’t know the details.

All of those stipulations were smart, and they will limit Rumpelstiltskin’s options, but he wasn’t ever really interested in these two in particular. There is one forgotten loophole, and he has every intention of taking advantage of it. He’s been stuck in this world of repetition and monotony for too long, centuries perhaps, and the chance to escape into another world will not be ignored.

After all, he never promised he’d return to this world after he returns them home. He’ll be free.

The excitement rushes through him, and he chuckles. He has preparations to make for his departure.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: _Your Fault_ **

Harry’s pulse throbbed in his temples, and he clenched his fists. While Draco chatted with this Rumpelstiltskin character, Harry wanted to rant and rave and throw things. But he wasn’t fifteen years old anymore; he knew better than to let an enemy see that they’d got to him. He wasn’t sure in the moment who he considered the enemy to be: Draco or Rumpelstiltskin. Probably both.

Teddy was _his_ ; his son, his godson, his ward, his to take care of and take responsibility for. How _dare_ Draco make bargains with Fairies or goblins or whatever the fuck and not discuss it with Harry first? How dare he take that choice away from him? If something happened to Teddy because of this, Harry would kill them. He’d take out both Draco and this Rumplestiltskin with his bare hands.

As soon as the man—Harry decided to think of him as a man because it was too confusing otherwise—left, he turned to Draco. He considered saying something but knew nothing good would come out, so instead, he simply stood and left. Pushing through the dark trees under the bright moon, he cast spells to check for people, animals, anything nearby. Nothing was there, so he threw up some barrier spells to contain himself and began blasting.

 _“Bombarda!”_ he yelled, aiming at an old tree stump and pushing all his rage into it. He watched the stump explode and felt his anger diminish, but just barely. _“Diffindo!”_ he hissed, aiming at some brush, and then _“Confringo!”, “Expulso!”,_ and finally, “ _Sectumsempra!”_

The last one slashed through the trees, tearing a pile of branches to shreds, and Harry stepped back. “Fuck.”

He hadn’t lost his temper like that in years. The devastation around him left a sour taste in his mouth, but he practised his breathing, attempting to get himself under control.

He stalked over to a patch of grass in the distance, took off his shirt and shoes and socks, and Transfigured one of his socks into a blanket. Shuffling onto the blanket, he began his meditation routine.

* * *

Draco cleaned up the remnants of their meal, irritated and exhausted. The strain of trying to keep up with Rumpelstiltskin and enduring Harry’s fury had taken a lot out of him.

He threw another log on the fire and glared in the direction where Harry had stomped off. The moment Rumpelstiltskin had left, an explanation had sat on Draco’s tongue, but Harry had left. Well, to hell with him. If he wanted to act like an ill-mannered two-year-old, who was Draco to interfere?

Draco ran his hands through his hair and recoiled. Filthy. This was only their second night in this place? It felt like much longer, so much had happened. Was it only last night that he’d had to have Harry show him how to place the logs correctly to keep them burning, that he’d listened to Harry snore while he’d kept watch in the darkness?

Harry’s pouch of supplies lay on the log like a promise. Harry wouldn’t leave Draco here, not without his things. He’d be back.

Draco summoned the blankets and bedding he’d created the night before and unshrunk them, setting about to create their campsite for the night. He rose the tent, distributed the blankets, cast the Cushioning Charms, and added a few additional protective charms around the site; ones that would hopefully keep the Fairy out, now that they knew about him.

He waited and waited and waited. The bright sky kept him company—the stars more plentiful and unfamiliar than he’d ever seen them, the moon larger and more radiant and nearly full. A pang echoed in Draco’s chest at the absence of his family constellations.

He wanted something familiar. He wanted to be home.

He went looking for Harry.

Following the direction he’d seen the blighter take in his temper, Draco walked until he came upon a scene of destruction. Blown tree stumps, broken branches, shredded shrubbery lay all around. Draco’s stomach twisted. If something had happened to Harry, if there’d been an ambush, if Harry had needed him and he'd just sat there by the fire, setting up a tent—

A noise to his right had him squinting between the trees.

In a small clearing, the moon cast a pale glow upon a half-naked body displayed in an unnatural position. If it’d not obviously been holding itself like that on purpose, Draco might have screamed. It would have been a manly, confident scream worthy of a Malfoy, but it would have indeed been a scream. As it was, though, it was simply strange. And intriguing. And, well, erotic.

Harry’s muscles glinted in the moonlight and drew Draco closer. Large beads of sweat trickled down Harry’s back as he held his pose. He had most of his weight on one arm as he held himself balanced with the other, both of his legs in the air at an angle pointed to his right. Harry’s biceps strained, and Draco let out a shaky exhale. The strength required to hold such a position sent his imagination to inappropriate places. Harry breathed slowly as he pulled his knees back in line with his body and lowered himself to the blanket.

“What are you doing?” Draco whispered into the stillness.

Harry didn’t startle. He hardly reacted, just breathed. Finally, his voice quiet and even and calm, he answered, “Yoga.”

Draco remembered their discussion the night before. ‘Twisty body exercises,’ Teddy had said, and now Draco could see why. “It helps you relax.”

“And calm down, yes.” Harry’s shoulders relaxed with a final deep breath. “I’m still angry, but I’m not going to blast anything now.” He stood and cringed when he wiped his face with his shirt. “I should have kept clean clothes in the pouch. I feel disgusting.”

Draco held out his hand. “May I?”

Harry met Draco’s gaze; his green eyes glinted like jades in the moonlight. He shrugged and handed over his sweaty shirt.

Draco tried not to wrinkle his nose. He drew out his wand and cast his best cleaning spells followed by a good Freshening Charm and handed the shirt back to Harry.

Harry gave it a quick sniff and shot Draco a little grin. “Thank you. Uh, do you think you could do the same later with my pants and trousers and socks? I’m rubbish at cleaning spells.”

“If you come back and we can talk about tonight like civil adults, then yes. We need to figure out our next steps, and I need you to help me do that.”

Harry pulled on his shirt. “Interesting. You didn’t seem to want my input at all tonight. ‘Shut up and let the adults handle it, Harry’.” Draco's stomach swooped as the jade of Harry's eyes caught fire. “If there’s one thing that’s my concern, that I should be consulted on, it’s Teddy. You had no right to make arrangements that involved him without me.”

The truth of those words rang in Draco’s bones like an oath, but that didn’t mean it was fair. “I wasn’t making arrangements about Teddy. I was making arrangements to get us home, and there were details at play that you weren’t aware of.”

Harry started towards the camp and Draco jogged to keep up. “Fine. I wasn’t aware of them, but I’ll be damned if I’ll sit back and let you dictate how we’re going to play this. I may not be the fighter I once was, but I’m not stupid. If I don’t know the details, fill me in. I won’t be kept in the dark.”

“There wasn’t time,” Draco argued, but then shut his mouth. He’d never get through to Harry like this. How did Gryffindors think? What buttons did they need pushed?

When they arrived at the campsite, Harry checked the wards.

Draco rolled his eyes. “Does my spell work meet your stringent guidelines, Your Highness?”

“Fuck you.”

“This is your problem, Potter,” Draco snarled, grabbing Harry’s arm and turning him around so that he had to pay attention. “You still think I’m the evil, conniving boy from the war who is stupid enough to get in over his head. It’s been a long time since then, and I’m not the same.” He took a breath and evened his voice. _Gryffindor._ “You need to learn to trust me, and not just here and now. At home, too. I have nothing but Teddy’s best interests in mind. I’d never do anything to put him in harm’s way, or take him away from you, whom he loves above everyone else.”

Harry jerked his arm away, scowling. “How the fuck am I supposed to trust you when you don’t tell me anything? Blind trust? I played that game with Dumbledore, and it failed, Malfoy. It got me killed, literally. I don’t fucking believe in blind trust.”

“Touché,” Draco whispered, dropping his eyes to land on the flattened grass where Rumpelstiltskin had sat. “I didn’t give you any information, and you have no reason to trust me.” He took a seat on the log and gestured to the tent. “Do you want to sit and I’ll explain, or would you rather wait until morning?”

Harry stared, his arms crossed, but adjusted his tone to match Draco’s. “If we wait, I’ll just stew about it all night. We’ve already ruined part of the good my meditation did; I’d rather not completely blow it.” Harry sat on the other end of the log and ran his hand through his hair. “Okay, tell me.”

Draco did. “I’m not sure what all is going on here, but we seem to have travelled in time. The children and hag were speaking German, and one of the historical figures that roamed part of the German countryside was a half-Fairy named Rumpelstiltskin.” He frowned and cocked his head, meeting Harry’s eyes. “You’ve never heard of him?”

Harry shook his head. “History isn’t my strong point.”

Draco tried not to judge. “Many of the stories about him have meshed with truth, and he appears in historical writings periodically over a spread of centuries. Most historians believe that he’s the son of a wizard and a Fairy.”

“A fairy. Like, a pixie? Or a Fairy?”

“A Fairy, from Underhill.”

“Fuck.”

“Exactly. But here’s the thing. Fairies have strict guidelines they follow in their interactions with people, especially humans.”

Harry stared into the fire, his brows drawn, and then nodded. “All that friend nonsense, and offering him food and stuff.”

“Hospitality laws, yes. Guest rites, some call them. A guest will not harm their host, and a host will not harm their guest. There’s no _should_ about it. They _can’t_.”

“Okay, so how does that play into your deal?” Harry finally sounded calm, and Draco’s chest relaxed.

“They can’t lie, and when they make a deal, they stick to it—to the letter. They’ll try to trick you and manipulate the situation, but if you lay out a stipulation and they agree to it, they can’t go against it.”

“So when you went on about not bothering us and acquaintances and all that—”

“He’s held to it. Completely. He can’t bother us, or harm us, or even influence or do anything that will affect our lives.”

“So Teddy—”

“—will be safe.”

Harry sighed. “Okay.” He stood and paced and ran another hand through his hair. “Okay. But Malfoy—Draco—when it comes to Teddy…” He sat down and turned back to Draco, his eyes narrowed and his voice gruff. “I need you to understand that he’s my son. I’m his parent. Yes, officially I’m his godfather, and he’s my ward, but there’s not anything I wouldn’t do for him. So no more decisions or ideas on things to teach him or whatever that you don’t discuss with me. I'm not unreasonable, but he’s my responsibility, and I expect to be treated like any other parent. Would you go up to another child’s mother or father and ask to take their child for an entire week a month and teach them stuff without the parent present? Things that you haven’t discussed with them, things they don’t necessarily know anything about? Would you just decide you need to have partial custody over their child and expect them to relent?” Harry’s eyes flashed. “He’s my _son_.”

Merlin, Draco had done that, hadn’t he? He hadn’t thought of it like that, but put in those terms, what the deuce had he been thinking? Of course, that wasn’t okay, but he’d expected Harry to let it happen. Hell, he’d thought Harry might even be relieved to have the time to himself! _Bloody hell_.

Draco swallowed. “My apologies. I truly did not consider it. You’re right.”

Harry’s eyes locked on Draco’s, searching; whatever it was that he found satisfied him, and he gave a curt nod. “Good.” He glanced at the tent. “We should get to sleep. Evidently, we have a magic spindle to hunt down tomorrow.”

Draco chuckled. “I get the feeling it’s not going to be as easy as all that.”

“Exactly,” Harry agreed. “Do you want the first watch, or should I?”

“I’ll take it,” Draco said, shooing Harry off. “Get some sleep.”

Harry stood. “Good night. Wake me in a few hours.”

* * *

By morning, Harry and Draco had each had time to calm down, to consider, and to plan their next day. While Harry fried some corned beef over the fire, Draco Apparated through the forest, testing his ability to make it back to the campsite. Having a home base to return to when evening came would be one less thing to worry about, even though Harry wished that it’d be as easy to Apprarate _to_ Rumpelstiltskin's spindle. Unfortunately, Apparition just didn’t work when you hadn’t been to your destination before.

Instead, they had to walk, so walk they did. They talked a bit as they went, sharing stories of their experiences with Teddy or with friends, but it was all general, neutral, and safe. Gods, sometimes Harry really hated being safe.

Still, it was what he did, and when they found their way at dusk to the old woman’s cabin, surrounded by trees and nestled under a tremendous oak, it was with relief that Harry knocked on the door, grateful for some new company.

Candlelight flickered through the cabin’s tiny window, and smoke poured from the chimney, but no one answered. Harry knocked again.

“Please,” came an elderly, female voice from the other side. “Please go away. I can’t help you. You need to go.”

“We just need to talk to you for a few minutes,” Harry called through the door.

“No, go away. Please. Come back tomorrow if you must.”

Harry rubbed his head, a dull throb forming behind his temple. Another fucking night in this place because he couldn’t bring himself to intrude on a stranger with night falling around them. He turned to Draco. “Tomorrow, then? We’ve been here once, so we should be able to Apparate back.”

Draco scowled. “Maybe she just doesn’t want visitors at night?”

They both stood staring at the door a moment longer before Harry stepped away, giving Draco’s sleeve a tug to follow. They approached the tree line, and Harry reached for Draco’s arm, preparing himself for Apparition, but a bang shattered his concentration.

Another bang and the sound of splintering wood rumbling from inside the cabin had Harry running back to the door, Draco on his heels.

“Ma’am. Are you okay?” Draco called.

The sound that answered sent a chill up his spine. Harry looked at the sky. “Oh, shit.”

“Was that…?”

“We’re going. Now.” He grabbed Draco’s arm and spun, but a split second before the crack of their Apparition rang through the night air, a child’s scream echoed into Harry’s consciousness.

* * *

_** Meanwhile… ** _

The old woman waits.

It’s nearly time, and she’ll suffer the night as she usually does—as she has done for the thirty years since she was first cursed. Back then, her children and grandchildren lived nearby. She’d worried for their safety, but they rarely visit now. They have children of their own.

She stokes the fire and waits, but the unexpected knock at the door sends her into a panic. They knock again, and she answers. She must. She must send them away.

“Please,” she says. “Please go away. I can’t help you. You need to go.” They need to go.

The man wants to talk. No, he must go! Quickly now. It’s nearly time.

“No, go away,” she says, and realising they might insist on staying, she gives them an option. “Come back tomorrow if you must.” She’ll be tired, ill, but at least they’ll be safe.

“Ma’am. Are you okay?” another voice asks. She opens her mouth to answer, but it’s too late. It’s here.

She looks to the door in the rear of the cabin, the one no one but her family uses, and there she is, her beautiful Oola, standing in the doorway. And it’s too late. The old woman sinks into the curse and feels only despair.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: _The Cape as Red as Blood_ **

“Umph,” Draco grunted, stumbling from the landing. He dropped Harry’s arm to let the man pace.

Draco preferred to sit and think. To contemplate.

The pieces had finally come together. The little details that had been nagging him the previous evening during his meeting with Rumpelstiltskin, the ones he should have noticed earlier with the hag.

“A fucking werewolf,” Harry muttered. “That arsehole sent us to a fucking werewolf, with no warning, on a full moon.” He kicked the log, evidently hurting his toe as he gave a little hop and swore.

“We didn’t ask,” Draco supplied helpfully, though he doubted Harry would see it that way. “He wasn’t going to volunteer any information we didn’t demand.”

Harry swung around and glared. “I thought he wanted the damned spindle.”

Draco shrugged. “He does, but that’s not how Fairies work. They don’t think like us. If he gives us information we didn’t ask for, then he’s giving it away for free.”

“Right,” Harry said with a glare. Draco wasn’t completely sure what Harry mumbled after that, but it sounded as though he was questioning whether Dumbledore had been a Fairy, which made Draco want to laugh, so he tuned Harry out entirely.

Going back to the details he’d considered the day before, he added in the new lycanthropic information.

“Do you have something to write with within that pouch, maybe some parchment?” he asked. “I need to make a list. I need to see it in writing.”

Harry threw the pouch at him, and Draco summoned out a Muggle notebook and pencil. He began to lay it out.

_1\. Hag who wants to eat two children_

_2\. Rumpelstiltskin’s interference_

_3\. An old lady with grandchildren who turns into a wolf_

“Fuck,” he muttered, then considered the sound of the scream as they’d Apparated away. “Fuck!” He jumped up. “Fuck, Harry, there was a little girl at the cottage. With the werewolf! We have to go back!”

“What?” Shock froze Harry mid-pace. “How do you know?”

“Fucking Red Riding Hood. Oh, Merlin, we just left a child to the wolf.”

Harry looked on. “I don’t understand.”

“Do you trust me? We talked about this earlier, but there’s no time to fill you in. Harry, do you trust me?”

Harry nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

“We’re going back. Let’s get in there, get the girl, and get back out.”

“Are you sure?” Harry asked, but he reached out to take Draco’s arm, ready to go.

“Yes, I’m sure.” He felt the pull of Disapparition and blinked up at the nearly silent cottage now in front of him. There was movement within, but no more screams.

“All right,” he said, thinking quickly. “Are you still good with your fighting and shields and such?”

Harry nodded. “Yeah. I don’t like to use them, but I can.”

“Cover my back, then. You get the wolf out of the way, and I’ll get the girl. Circe, I hope we’re not too late.”

“I’m not going to kill the wolf, Draco. It’s not her fault.”

“Do whatever you need to do.” Draco gripped his wand tighter. “Embroider her a cushion; I don’t give a fuck. Just watch my back so we can get in and out.”

“Fine. Right.” Harry reached for the door then turned with a shaky grin. “But I prefer knitting.”

Harry entered, and the spells started flashing. It was almost too much in such a small, dark space. Harry’s yells, the wolf’s howls, breaking furniture—Draco’s head spun. He took a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the low glow of the fire highlighted by yellow and blue spells.

“She’s in the corner by the back door!” Harry shouted as the wolf threw herself against his Shield Charm. “Hurry up. I’m not sure how long this will hold!”

A shape huddled on the floor by a door on the other side of the room. Draco stepped around a broken table and shattered pottery, a fallen broom, and a scattered pile of firewood. As he drew near, he saw the shape of a child sprawled in front of the threshold. He reached down. The wolf sprang forwards. Draco threw himself over the girl, and the wolf hit Harry’s spell only inches from Draco’s back.

“Go!” Harry yelled.

Without taking time to check the child, he scooped her up. In the split-second it took him to stabilise her in his arms, the wolf leapt, and the spell fell, and Harry threw himself between them.

With a small pop of Apparition, Draco was gone. The camp swam before him, and his ears rang in the silence.

He had to get back to Harry.

* * *

“She’s in the corner by the back door!” Harry shouted as the wolf jumped and ploughed into his Shield Charm. He grunted, his magic straining. “Hurry up. I’m not sure how long this will hold!”

The wolf let out a fierce howl as Draco approached the child. Harry adjusted his angle and cast a shield in front of Draco, sliding it in just inches from where the wolf would have landed on Draco’s back.

“Go!” he yelled. Bloody hell, he hated this. _This is why I’m not an Auror, for fuck’s sake._

The werewolf gave a low growl and charged again, but Harry realised too late that his shield had failed. He had to give Draco time to get away, so he threw himself in between the wolf and her target, arms out to push her away if necessary. The pop of Apparition assured Harry that Draco and the girl were gone only a split second before Harry and the wolf collided. He went with instinct and kicked one foot up and braced himself for the fall. Her strength was too great, and they toppled backwards, her teeth snapping close enough to his throat that he could feel the heat of her breath.

Harry’s hip rang with the impact, and a claw scraped through his hair. He managed to throw the wolf as he landed, but his wand rolled from his hand.

The wolf got to her feet, her muzzle dripping with drool. Harry gasped for breath, trying to see his wand out of his peripheral vision, hesitant to move his gaze off her, but careful not to challenge her dominance.

“Right,” he said, feeling blood drip down his temple. “I’m just going to back up to the door and leave.” He reached his foot out slowly to pull his wand towards him, but she lunged.

Harry slipped on his wand, and darkness swallowed him whole.

* * *

Draco landed right outside the cottage and swung the door open in time to see Harry go down, his right foot sliding out from under him and his head hitting the floor hard.

The wolf, unprepared for Harry’s fall, overshot him in her lunge and crashed into an old chest by the wall, about two feet from Draco’s right side. He reminded himself that this was an old woman and that Harry didn’t want to hurt her, so instead of hitting her with the heaviest Blasting Curse he could manage, he hit the wall _behind_ her.

The heavy cabin walls withstood the impact, but the roof didn’t. The dirt and wood and thatching collapsed in on her, and the wolf grew still.

Harry lay unconscious on the floor in front of her, a small puddle of blood collecting under his head.

“Fuck, Potter,” Draco gasped and dropped to his knees next to the fallen man.

He reached for a pulse and found it steady, but the hand he withdrew from the messy mop of hair as he tried to pick Harry up was covered in dark blood. Draco’s stomach turned.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he mumbled. “Before she wakes up.”

A rustle in the wreckage convinced him that it really was for the best. He cast a quick and gentle Levitation Charm, took hold of Harry’s arm, and they disappeared.

Once back at the campsite, Draco set Harry down on a blanket and considered his options, his mind stepping through the cold logic of his next steps. He had two injured people, and he was not a Healer. If he could get Harry to a state where he could talk, then Harry could tell him what to do to help the girl. He pulled the small leather pouch from Harry’s neck, ignoring the jolt of pleasure as he brushed the man’s throat with his fingers. Inside was a small case of medicinal potions, most of which he recognised.

“Wiggenweld Potion,” Draco muttered. “Perfect.” He leaned over Harry. Pulling his chin to open his mouth, he slowly drizzled the green liquid down Harry’s throat, pausing to ensure he swallowed and didn’t choke. Draco stopped when about half of the bottle was empty and waited.

Harry’s eyelids fluttered. He let out a long groan and peered between his lashes at Draco. “Fuck, Malfoy,” he said, his voice gravelly, making Draco react in ways he didn’t want to contemplate. “What the fuck happened?”

“Werewolf,” Draco said quietly. “Do you remember?”

Harry jolted up, gasping. “Werewolf? Did I—”

“No!” Draco rushed to assure him, pushing him back down. “At least, not that I can tell. I need you to help me heal you, and then we have to help the child.”

Harry closed his eyes, and Draco feared he’d gone to sleep. After several moments, Harry muttered, “Right. The spindle. Is she okay? The little girl?”

“So far. I need you to finish this potion and tell me what else to do so you can tend her.”

Harry shook his head slowly, paused, and gave a tiny nod, flinching at the movement. “Yeah, okay. Fill me in. What are my injuries?”

Draco grabbed his wand. “I don’t know any diagnostic spells, but your head is bleeding, and you lost consciousness.”

“My hip is killing me, too. Give me my wand.”

Draco looked around, scrambling, then froze. “It’s not here.”

Harry seemed to take that in stride. “I think it’s how I fell. I slipped on it.” He took a short breath. “I need you to try the spell, then. Just move your hand like this and say—”

Before Harry could finish, Draco put his wand in Harry’s hand. “Just do it.”

Harry’s eyes flew open. “Draco,” he said, his voice huskier than just a moment before. “I—”

“Shut up. You’ve used it before, so use it now. Cast your diagnostic.”

Harry swirled the wand around and opened his eyes, reading the little numbers and symbols that only he could see.

“I have a concussion, a pretty nasty gash on the crown of my head, and my hip is badly bruised, but overall just fine. Give me that Healing Potion. It should take care of the rest of this.”

Draco let out a deep breath and helped Harry finish the bottle of Wiggenweld Potion. Harry carefully sat up, still breathing slowly, and then turned his head and dry-heaved. Draco rubbed small circles across the bottom of Harry’s back, something that had always helped Pansy when she was ill from too much drinking in school.

Harry brushed his hand across his mouth, clearing the spittle, and held his free hand out. “Water?”

Draco passed him a flask, and Harry took a long drink.

“Thanks. I’ll be able to move more in a moment. Tell me about the kid.” His voice was still rough, but it had regained some of its strength.

“She’s been unconscious since I grabbed her. Her nose was bleeding; she’s got a bruised-up face and a cut on her arm.”

“A bite?” Harry asked, his tone concerned.

“Don’t think so. Didn’t look to be.”

“Merlin, if we all get out of this whole and uninfected, it’ll be a miracle.” He turned to Draco. “Help me up?”

Draco stood and reached down, hooking his elbow beneath Harry’s armpit and pulling him towards him. He must have pulled too hard because Harry stumbled, his chest slammed into Draco’s, causing another low moan of discomfort. Draco didn’t want to examine why he had to stifle a moan of his own. It was simply out of empathy. Of course. Empathy.

“Thanks,” Harry muttered. He turned to the tent where the girl lay and limped over.

She appeared to be around twelve years old, the bloom of adolescence touching her features. A bruise covered her temple and blood trickled from her nose. A bit more trailed from a cut on the back of her arm, but it didn’t appear to be a large amount.

Using Draco’s wand, Harry cast the diagnostic spell again and waited, then pointed at his potions box. “Get me the purple one. It’s gentler, for children, and should be what she needs.”

Draco handed over a small phial of purple, sparkling potion that he didn’t recognise. He watched as Harry examined the child and spelled the potion directly into her stomach.

 _“Tergeo,”_ he murmured, vanishing the layers of dirt and blood, revealing the girl’s light blonde hair, the colour of honey, falling in loose curls around her face.

Her appearance took on a more peaceful look, her breathing deepened, and Draco was sure she’d fallen into a legitimate sleep instead of the unconsciousness of moments before.

They quietly stepped out of the tent, and Draco sat down on the log before his legs gave out.

Harry heaved a long sigh as he settled down next to Draco and handed over the wand. “Thanks…” Draco opened his mouth to respond, but Harry wasn’t done. “…for coming back.”

Harry blushed and looked away, perhaps realising how that sounded, as if he’d expected Draco would just abandon him there. He continued before Draco could get worked up.

“I don’t mean it like that. Just, I didn’t even question it. I knew you would. I knew you’d be there. And I knew you’d take care of her.” He paused and turned to Draco, green eyes piercing into Draco’s heart. “Thank you. For going back for her, for coming back for me, and for reminding me that trust is a wonderful thing.”

Something swelled in Draco’s throat. He nodded and turned away. After a moment, he took a deep breath. “You need to sleep. I’ll take the first watch tonight while you heal.”

Harry shook his head. “That potion will keep me up for a while. You go ahead.” He froze, his eyes wide and his eyebrows raised. “Wait, are you hurt? Do you need anything? I didn’t even ask—”

A small smile curved Draco’s lips as a wave of pleasure warmed his stomach. “No, I’m fine Potter.” He held his wand out, handle first. “If you’re on first watch, you’ll need this.”

Draco approached the tent, glad he’d made it roomy so there was plenty of space for the girl on one side and him on the other, and pleased with his foresight to add another blanket dividing those sides to give each some privacy. He didn’t want to scare the child when she woke.

He paused before stepping into the tent and turned back, catching Harry’s eye. “You’re welcome.”

Harry’s half-smile stayed with Draco that night as he fell asleep.

* * *

_** Meanwhile… ** _

Adalwolfa opens her eyes in the early morning light and looks around her wrecked cottage.

Sixty years she’s lived here, loved here, and raised her family here. She’s _changed_ here. For years, her husband would take the children away during the full moon, but after his death, she made a deal with the Fairy. She did a deed for him, and he gave her the spindle, able to whisk her loved ones, usually grandchildren, away if one was near at the wrong time, on the wrong night. Then that, too, was gone, given to her youngest granddaughter seventeen years before.

The grandchildren are no longer children; they know to stay away on the full moon.

But now they have children of their own, and oh, Oola, Oola, Oola, her sweet girl.

Adalwolfa calls out to Oola in hope that maybe, somehow, she’s not been hurt, that she had not truly been there, perhaps only a figment of Adalwolfa’s imagination during her change.

Then she sees the cloak. Oola’s beautiful red cloak lies on the floor. Adalwolfa sees the blood, and she weeps.

Oola.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: _I Know Things Now_ **

“Shh, it’s okay.”

Another voice answered, the language foreign, the tone quiet and young. Draco turned from his place by the morning fire, a cup of tea warming his hands. The sun had only risen perhaps an hour ago, not quite high enough yet for it to be felt through the trees. He took his wand and cast the translation spell on himself, and then approached the tent.

“Good morning,” he said, crouching and waiting outside the flap of blanket covering the entrance. “May I come in?”

The girl pulled back the blanket, her face tense and her breathing erratic. “Where am I? Who are you? Where’s my grandmother?”

Draco discreetly aimed his wand at Harry on the other side of the dividing blanket, hitting him with the same translation spell before tucking the wand away.

“My name is Draco. This is Harry.”

Harry had climbed out and now stood behind him. She seemed warier of Harry—perhaps because he’d been asleep in the tent across from her—which Harry picked up on and maintained his distance.

“We went to your grandmother’s last night to visit, and you were hurt. We brought you here to heal you.” He nodded to Harry, trying not to laugh at all the dark hair hanging in a wild mess around his head. Evidently, not even a hair tie could keep it in check overnight. “Harry, here, is a Healer.”

The girl scrambled up and out of the tent, adjusting her dress, her eyes skipping between the two strange men. Draco stood and stepped back by the fire to give her some space.

“I’m cold,” the girl whispered, her head down but her eyes continuing to dart between them. “Can I bring one of the blankets with me?”

Draco smiled. “Of course.”

She wrapped it around her shoulders and approached the fire, sitting on the ground on the opposite side, as far away as she could get while still benefiting from the fire’s heat. Draco tried to imagine what she must be thinking.

“Would you like some tea? It’s warm. I also have some fruit if you’d like something to eat.” He looked to Harry with raised brows, hoping he’d take the hint.

Harry nodded and sat down. “I’d like a pear, please, Draco. And that tea sounds lovely.” He glanced at the girl as he took the fruit from Draco’s hand. “I’m sorry we don’t have any porridge this morning, but the pears are delicious.”

She hesitated and watched Harry take a bite. “I’d like that. Thank you, sir.”

Harry poured her a cup of tea and picked up another pear from Draco. He walked them to the girl and gently passed them over. “What’s your name?”

“Oola,” she whispered. “When we’re done, can you take me back to my great-grandmother? Please?”

Harry gave her a sweet smile, and Draco was surprised the girl didn’t melt, it was so warm. It made Draco want to melt, anyway, which really wasn’t fair this early in the morning. _Git._

“Of course. I’m sure she’s worried about you,” Harry said in a quiet voice.

“Is she okay? There was a wolf, and I couldn’t find Großmutter, and I don’t remember anything else.” Her voice quivered, and tears glistened in her eyes.

“I think she’ll be okay when she sees you,” Harry hedged, taking another bite of his pear and chewing thoughtfully. “Do you go to see your grandmother often?”

She nodded. “Yes, sir, but usually in the mornings and my parents expect me back by dark, but yesterday I got lost in the forest, and I didn’t get to her cottage until late. My parents are going to be so angry.”

“I’m sure they’ll simply be worried about you, Oola,” Draco said.

He watched her finish eating and looked at Harry, hoping he’d attempt to explain the concept of Apparition to her. Harry met his eyes, raising his eyebrows, and nodded towards the girl. Draco gave an answering nod and made a motion with his hands, mimicking a spin. Harry rolled his eyes, gave a smile, and turned back to the child.

_Merlin, did we just have a conversation without words? We aren’t seriously able to do that, so in-tune with each others' thoughts?_

When Harry started speaking, pleasure flooded Draco’s stomach. Harry _had_ understood, so yes, they’d just managed to communicate—to understand each other—without words. A week ago they couldn’t understand one another with a thousand words, and now—

“We’re going to take you back to your grandmother’s, but it’s going to be strange. We’re going to ask you to close your eyes and take my arm. It’ll feel like your entire body is squeezing for just a moment, but when you open your eyes, you’ll be home.”

The girl’s eyes grew wide. “It’s magic, then? Like my mother told me about from when she was young, and Großmutter sent her home with magic?”

Harry nodded. “It’s like that, yes. Are you willing to try?”

A smile spread across her face. “Yes! I’ve always wanted to try that. Mother has told me about it since I was small, but I thought she made it up. Please? May we go now?” She’d jumped up, the nervousness falling away in her excitement.

Draco shared a smile with Harry. _Well, that certainly makes things simpler._

* * *

They approached the cabin almost thirty minutes later, having taken time to clean up the campsite and put everything to rights for the day. Oola had mastered her former reticence and entertained them with information about her family, her friends, and her favourite duck on their farm, and—well, anyway, she’d gotten over her shyness, and Harry was glad to see it.

Uncertainty settled into Harry’s stomach, a twisting sensation of anxiety when he saw the crumbled state of the cottage’s roof. His fingers twitched, reflexively reaching for his missing wand, his mind flinging repair spells to the forefront of his thoughts.

Behind Harry, Draco stood with Oola in the mid-morning light, his still somewhat-pristine, urban-London-wear a stark contrast to Oola’s muslin dress. _Godric, this entire situation is odd._

He knocked on the door, but it opened before his knuckles could reach the wood, framing an old woman in the doorway. Her long, grey hair tangled around her shoulders and back, and her face, lined with wrinkles of age, and joy, and laughter, was drawn and listless, her eyes swollen. Dirt and tears covered her grey calico dress.

“Großmutter!” Oola yelled.

The woman looked over, and her whole demeanour lightened as her eyes went wide. She fell to her knees, and Harry stepped out of the way, allowing Oola to throw herself into her great-grandmother’s arms.

“You’re alive. Oh, child, you’re alive,” the woman cried, cradling the girl in her arms. “I thought I’d killed you.”

The girl pulled away, her blue eyes large and her chin trembling. “You? But the wolf…”

The woman’s thin lips trembled even as they smiled and she rocked the child, pulling Oola’s face against her chest. Her wet eyes found Harry. “You were the men who were here yesterday, I suppose. I’d invite you in, but the house is a bit in shambles.”

Harry smiled his most endearing, sweetest, _safe_ smile—the one he knew charmed old women and nervous children alike. “It’s fine. Actually, I think I caused some of that myself last night when we came back to help Oola.”

Draco withdrew his wand. “We’re wizards and can help fix it. Will you allow us?”

Harry held his breath, hoping they’d made the right decision.

The woman looked at the wand and then met Harry’s eyes, a smile crossing her withered face. “Your help would be most appreciated. Come,” she said, standing up but not letting Oola out of her arms. “You’ve helped my Oola and want to help me. Please, tell me how I can help _you_.”

* * *

Draco sat uncomfortably at the newly repaired table in the newly repaired cabin under the newly repaired roof and pondered Harry’s _smile_. Not just any smile, though Merlin knew the man had a nice one, but that particular smile that had convinced the woman to let them come in and help. Bloody hell, it had been blinding. Draco had only gotten half of it—he’d been off to the side—but it had done something to him that had left him dazed, confused, and, well, aroused.

And now here he sat, still trying to get his wits about him. _Fucking Potter._ _Wait,_ he stopped himself. _No. Not fucking Potter._ He couldn’t think of _that_ right now. _Bloody Potter._ _Shit, no!_ That brought images of the night before. _Stupid, frustrating git, Potter!_ Yes, yes, that worked well.

The mention of the magic spindle drew his attention back to the conversation between Harry and the old woman, Adalwolfa.

“I don’t have it anymore; I’m sad to say, Harry. I used it for many years, and I do wish I had it now so that I’d not need to worry about things like last night. I’ve survived with my curse for over thirty years, and this is the closest I’ve come to hurting someone I love.” She squeezed Oola’s hand and leaned in to hug the girl sitting next to her.

Draco’s stomach sank, but Harry continued, “I understand. Could you tell me more about it? What it looks like; when you last had it; who might have it now?”

“Well, now, let me see,” she said, sitting back in her chair, fondly searching her memory in the way of the elderly of any world. “It’s slightly longer than the length of my hand”—she held her hand out for them to see—“and it’s made of a dark wood nearly as thick at the centre as my thumb is. It has about eight etched lines carved beautifully into the wood, and the end flows into a bulb-shape with fine carvings. The most distinguishing part is a star etched into the bulb. It’s really quite beautiful for something so common as a spindle, but I suppose that’s what you get when you receive a gift from the Fairies.”

Draco took notes on his Muggle notepad and did a quick sketch. “Does this look anything like it?”

She nodded and reached over to pat his hand. “It certainly does. You have a good eye for drawing, dear.”

He pushed down a blush and refused to look at Harry, whom he felt watching.

Adalwolfa continued, “It’s been almost twenty years since I last saw it. I gave it to my youngest granddaughter before she got married.” She looked down at Oola’s blonde head leaning on her shoulder. “I hadn’t considered my great-grandchildren, somehow. I suppose I didn’t expect to live this long.”

“Großmutter, don’t say that!” Oola cried.

“It’s true, but here I am anyway.”

Draco opened his mouth to ask the next question, but Harry beat him to it. “Your granddaughter, the one who had it, do you think she still might?”

Adalwolfa sighed. “I know not. She’s had a difficult time of things, her first child taken from her, and she was never able to conceive again. She lives now in a village at the base of the mountain, a two days’ walk to the west.”

 _Fuck,_ Draco thought. _Fuckity fuck. Two days._ He held one last hope for a clue. “Adalwolfa, what is her name, your granddaughter who has the spindle?”

“Ingrid.”

“Ingrid. And her husband?”

“Frank.”

 _Damn._ That didn’t help, but maybe… Well, he could think about that later.

“Thank you,” Harry said, standing. “It sounds as though we have a long walk ahead of us, so we’ll be going. Thank you for your time.”

“No, thank you both. You saved my Oola. You’ll have my gratitude forever.”

Harry smiled that smile again, and Draco just couldn’t look. He turned and fled, and yes, it was cowardly, but it was also self-defence. He had another puzzle to unravel, and he didn’t need Harry’s ridiculous distracting face slowing him down.

* * *

Harry watched, confused, as Draco practically fled from the cabin, but he just shrugged and bid the ladies farewell.

_Two days._ Two days before their next hope of finding the damned spindle. Two days, at the soonest, of getting home to Teddy. His stomach hurt at the fear his son must be feeling. Harry’s only saving grace was knowing how much Teddy was loved and cared for by everyone around him. He wouldn’t be alone right now, but basking in the attention of all his younger Weasley cousins.

“Draco!” Harry called out, hurrying to catch up with the man already waiting at the end of the path leading back into the forest. Draco pulled his jacket around him while the wind whipped his hair about his face. “Hey, so should we just start walking and Apparate back to camp at nightfall?”

“Yes, I think so. No point in going back east to the camp and starting our walk from there. That’d just add to it. Shit. Two days, Harry.”

“I know.” Harry tried to keep the hint of despair from his voice but didn’t think he was successful.

Draco might have caught on, though, because he started talking, his voice overly cheerful. Harry wanted to laugh. _Imagine, Draco Malfoy trying to distract me to keep my spirits up. Merlin._

“So,” Draco began, “I promised yesterday I would explain, but I’ve not had the chance. I’ll admit, I’m kind of shocked you haven’t picked up on it at this point.”

Harry glanced over. “Picked up on what?”

“The fairy tales.”

“You mean Rumplestiltskin, the Fairy?”

“No. Well, yes, but no, not because he’s a Fairy.”

“I’m obviously missing something, so don’t leave me hanging here. Explain.”

Draco stopped and looked at Harry closely, making him run his hand through his hair.

“What?” Harry finally asked, working to keep the sharpness from his voice.

“Fairy tales, Harry. Cinderella, Snow White, all of that?”

“Ohhh, right, like the Disney movies. What do they have to do with anything?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “The book I showed you back in the shop, the one by the Brothers Grimm. _Children's and Household Tales_ is the English translation.”

Harry nodded. “Okay…?”

“The films…they were based on the original book, a German collection of stories that were passed down orally over generations and finally recorded by the Grimm brothers in the early nineteenth century. They were quite popular, and there were many revisions in their lifetime, but the copy I have in the shop is a first edition.” He shot Harry a little glare. “These stories are common in the Muggle world, too. Do you honestly not know anything about them?”

Harry looked away, not in the mood to delve into his ridiculous lack of childhood experiences. “I’ve heard of them, but my relatives didn’t really encourage that kind of reading.” _Or reading at all, really, but that isn’t important right now._ “By the time I was away from them, I was trying to catch up on magical culture. I’ve read quite a bit to Teddy over the years, but he never really had an interest in princesses and curses and stuff.”

“Yes, well,” Draco said slowly, still watching him, his eyes narrowed. “Let me tell you a couple of the fairy tale stories, and tell me if they sound at all familiar.”

Harry shrugged. “Sure. Not much else to do while we walk. Story-away, Malfoy.”

Draco grinned. “Once upon a time, next to a great forest there lived a poor woodcutter who had come upon hard times and could no longer feed his wife and their two children, Hansel and Gretel…”

Harry listened to the story. Draco’s voice took on a soft lilt as he spoke of the boy and girl leaving stones and then bread crumbs behind them as they were taken and abandoned in the forest. When he got to the part about the old woman taking them into the house and feeding them and making them feel as though they were in heaven, Harry’s shoulders tightened.

“She grabbed Hansel and put him in a little cage, locked up like an animal, and his sister was forced to feed him and fatten him until he was ready for the woman’s belly.”

Harry gasped. “The hag.”

Draco nodded but continued the story, finally ending as the children made their way home to their father with their pockets full of jewels.

“The girl. Her name was Greta,” Harry said to himself.

“Yes.”

“Fuck. Okay, you said you had a couple of stories to tell. Are there more?”

“Of course,” Draco said, but his sneer looked more amused than irritated, and Harry laughed.

“Fine. Keep going.” He reached into his pouch and withdrew some fruit, tossing Draco an apple and biting into one himself. “Just don’t let your chewing interrupt the story. You have a nice storytelling voice.”

Draco nearly choked on his apple. Harry felt himself blush and couldn’t resist a slight jab.

“It’s less prissy than your regular speech.”

“Piss off.” Draco laughed. “The word you’re looking for is _cultured_. Now shut up and listen.”

This time the story revolved around Rumpelstiltskin who helped a girl spin straw into gold in exchange for her first-born child.

“Merlin,” Harry muttered when Draco was done. “How the hell did you know his name?”

“Something was niggling at me about the hag already, but I hadn’t figured out what. I think the stories were on my mind, and like I said before, Rumpelstiltskin isn’t solely a man in a story, he’s documented in wizarding history. He’s a Fairy, which the story alludes to in discussing his bargain with the girl, but he also has a fascination with children. When he mentioned Teddy, it clicked. I wasn’t sure, and using his name was a risk. Fairies _really_ don’t like being called by name. When I used it, I added my will behind it. It wasn’t just a word like we’re using it now, but a Name.”

“And that’s why he freaked out?”

“Yes, Potter.” Draco’s voice was dry but amused. “That’s why he _freaked out_.”

Harry considered, then took a deep breath, afraid to know the answer to his next question. “So Oola and Adalwolfa?”

“Surely you at least know this one?”

Harry shrugged. “Tell me.”

Draco heaved a long sigh and then grinned. “Fine. Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was very sweet and loved by everyone who knew her, but especially by her grandmother. Her grandmother made her a hat out of red velvet, and she wore it often. Soon everyone called her Little Red Cap.”

“But you called her Red Riding Hood.”

“Later versions changed it up. Now shut up. Anyway…”

Harry’s stomach coiled as the story took a violent turn. He didn’t know why he should be surprised to hear the tale of the woman and child being eaten by a wolf. He knew the grandmother was a werewolf, but the twisted ending of a huntsman cutting the woman and child from a wolf’s stomach where they were found still alive made Harry nauseous.

“They tell this story to children? Fuck. What the hell is wrong with them?”

Draco laughed. “Not so much now. That’s why they have those newer versions. What did you say they were? Disney? But the originals taught a lesson. ‘Don’t leave the path in the woods, don’t talk to strangers, and pay attention to things that seem odd’.”

Harry shuddered. “I suppose.” They walked along in silence for a bit, Harry lost in his thoughts of the last hour. Hell, of the last few days. “So we’re stuck in some kind of fairy-tale land, right?”

“Or something like it, yes. It does appear that way,” Draco agreed.

“So what’s next? Like, what story are we getting ourselves into next? Can you tell from what Adalwolfa told us of this Ingrid and her husband, Frank?”

“No.” Draco scowled. “I’ve been thinking of every story I know. There are quite a few with children being taken away, but generally, the story is about the child, not the parents, and none have names anything like that. I mean, Greta was very close to Gretel, and Adalwolfa means ‘Noble She Wolf’. Hell, I think Oola even means something wolf related, if my language studies aren’t failing me completely. But Ingrid and Frank? I’ve got nothing.”

“So we’re going in blind.”

“Yes. Pretty much.”

“Well,” Harry said, trying to make Draco smile, “at least we have two days to prepare ourselves, right?”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

* * *

_** Meanwhile… ** _

He wishes they’d stop saying his name. It’s rude. Blasted humans. And that old woman! Giving his gift away, as though it were hers to do with as she pleased. She is lucky she is of no use to him anymore, or he’d show her what he thinks of that. Except he can’t. Stupid rules. Stupid humans.

He listens to them talk, discussing this supposed granddaughter. Ingrid and Frank. That means nothing to him, but… well, he does know of a baby that was taken—fair and square, of course— from a young woman about seventeen years ago. And he knows where that young girl is now, and maybe, just maybe, she is the answer for the men. He’ll simply guide them, discreetly, of course, in the right direction.

And if she’s not, well, it’ll be fun to watch them deal with Fee.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: _Rapunzel’s Song_ **

“So…” Draco hesitated. Somehow, he sensed this was going to be a sensitive subject, but it’d been bothering him since Harry had first mentioned it, and now, sitting in front of the fire at their campsite, it wouldn’t leave him alone.

Harry watched him, the look on his face the same one he’d worn as a kid whenever he thought Draco was about to say something insulting. Draco wanted to roll his eyes, except, well, this conversation might not go much better than those old ones had.

“…how is it,” he finally continued, “that you were raised Muggle, but you haven’t heard of Muggle fairy tales that almost every Muggle knows?”

Harry’s face turned from suspicious to wary.

“I didn’t grow up like typical Muggles,” Harry admitted, which wasn’t some huge revelation as Draco had been able to glean that much over the years.

“All right,” Draco said when it was clear Harry had no intention of continuing. “How so?”

“My relatives,” Harry continued with a rough voice, looking as though he were searching for something in his head, maybe trying to find the words. “They sucked.”

Draco burst out laughing, and Harry cracked a grin.

“Well, they did.”

Draco kept laughing, trying to respond, but his eyes had begun to tear, and he held his stomach instead.

Harry just shrugged, his grin growing wider.

“I’m sorry, Potter,” Draco finally got out. “I was just expecting something…”

“More detailed, perhaps?”

“Sure. Detailed, drama-ridden, angst-filled…something.”

Harry laughed. “Yeah, well, it was all that, of course, but mostly, it just sucked. I’ve had loads of years of therapy to learn to say that, so you should be proud of me. They sucked. And it wasn’t my fault. And I deserved better.” Draco’s laughter faded, but Harry’s smile didn’t fall. “And now I have better, and it’s okay.”

Draco watched him, the mirth morphing into something intangible in his stomach. “Tell me about it?”

Harry’s green eyes searched Draco’s face. Finally, he gave a little nod. “The Dursleys, my mother’s sister’s family, they’re about as boring as you can get. They pride themselves on it, on being like everyone else, but _more_.”

“More what?”

“More everything. Bigger, cleaner, richer, more gossipy, more judge-y, more arsehole-y.”

“Arsehole-y?” Draco challenged with a grin.

“It fits. Trust me. Anyway, I’m not any of those things they admired. I—”

“You were probably richer,” Draco interjected, curious as to how that played out.

“Didn’t know that then. Neither did they, thank Merlin, or I’m sure it’d all be gone. As far as they were concerned, I was just a strange, freaky little kid that did weird stuff, made them look bad, and was an extra expense.”

“Was it bad? Like, bad-bad?”

Harry shrugged and glanced into the fire. “Sometimes. In hindsight, having been in the profession of healing children for the last few years, I can say that I had it better than some, but worse than others. I mean, I’ve never run into another kid who had a cupboard under the stairs as their bedroom for ten years, but at the time, I didn’t really think it was that abnormal. I was the poor relation, so of course, I didn’t merit a bedroom, even though there were two spare ones upstairs.”

Anger flowed through Draco for the little boy, overshadowing any shock he might have otherwise felt at the revelation. He pictured Teddy forced to live in a broom cupboard and thinking that was just how it was, and he wanted to punch something. He kept quiet, though, afraid to interrupt.

“Hogwarts was my way out, but then I had to go back every summer, and it became that much worse because I knew by then it didn’t have to be that way—that they _chose_ to be like that, and I was the lucky recipient.”

Harry met Draco’s eyes, his intense gaze making Draco’s stomach clench and his chest tingle. The emerald green was almost black in the darkness, firelight flickering off his glasses. His face, unshaven for nearly three days now, had a scruffy black beard accentuating the strong jaw he’d grown into in his adulthood. Draco’s fingers itched to brush back the strands of hair that had fallen into Harry’s face, tucking them into the black band that held them at the nape of his neck.

Instead, he looked at the fire. “So, they treated you like shit. And given your state when you arrived at Hogwarts, they didn’t care for you as they should, not even the bare basics.”

“I think they considered them the bare basics. A roof over my head, food at least once a day, something to keep me from being naked. But not much more; not usually.”

“And things like fairy tales—”

“—just weren’t important. To be fair, I doubt Dudley was all that familiar with them either, but that’s just because he hated books and Aunt Petunia didn’t make him do anything he didn’t like.”

Draco thought about Teddy, the healthy glow to his smiling face as he brought his favourite book—The Hobbit—with him to the Manor, urging Draco to do the voices for him as his dad often did. And then Draco imagined a young Harry, sitting alone and hungry in a cupboard, refused access to a simple fairy tale.

“They really sucked,” Draco agreed, looking back over with a grin.

Harry smirked. “See? I told you so. Really, it’s a much easier explanation when people ask. Much less angst and not any less true.”

Draco's grin faded into a forced smile. “And now you help kids who were like you.”

“Trauma comes in a lot of forms. I’ve been through a few, but there are others that I’ll always count myself lucky to have escaped. Kids are resilient, and if I can help them learn how to cope, how to heal, then I’ve made a difference, you know? It’s gratifying.”

 _Fuck._ How could something so sad and so horrible produce somebody like the man sitting next to him? Draco was fascinated…and just a little terrified. About what, he wasn’t sure, but he was honest enough with himself that he could identify its source: his feelings for this strange and intriguing man whom he’d known so long, but hadn’t ever really _known_.

“So,” Harry said, his voice cheerful, “I’ve shared my traumatic experience. Your turn. And the war doesn’t count, because I know most of that.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “If you’re expecting some terrible Lucius story, you’ll be disappointed. My parents raised me and loved me and showered me with affection and gifts. What you see is what you get, there. The war changed that, but—”

“But no war, tonight. Come on, spill.”

“Fine.” Draco thought through it all and then smiled sadly. “My most traumatic experience is also my best experience.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Go on,” he urged with a drawl, giving Draco a look reminiscent of Rita Skeeter waiting on a juicy story.

“You’re ridiculous,” Draco answered, suppressing a laugh. “Starting my shop. It was terrifying, and there was so much I didn’t know, and so much I wanted to prove, and so many ways to fail. I struggled a lot that first year, trying to make it work, trying to be different from other shops, different than people expected of me. I wanted redemption, I think.” He stared into the fire, lost in memory.

“That’s understandable. When did it start to change?”

“When I hired Jack. I met him through Minerva, actually. He was the father of one of her Muggle-born students—”

“Chelsea, your apprentice, right?”

“Mm-hmm,” Draco agreed. “He had the experience I needed to improve the shop, and talking to him gave me a good understanding of what it was like for parents like him, and for the kids entering our world. And then he introduced me to Oscar, his brother.”

“I’ve not met Oscar,” Harry observed. “Is he around the shop much?”

“No, you wouldn’t have met him; he doesn’t come around often anymore. But he did back then. He’s a land agent and helped us expand the shop.” Draco paused, trying to decide if he wanted to go on, but decided they were on the subject anyway. “We actually dated pretty seriously for almost two years, but, by then, the store was becoming more successful, and I was deeply immersed in expanding the antiquities selections. I had to travel to magical locations quite a bit for that, and I took him along a few times.”

Harry nodded. “How’d that go?”

“I thought it was great.” Draco remembered that time clearly; they were in love and happy and carefree. It made him smile. “We travelled, saw the world, and it all seemed so romantic. I was considering maybe proposing, but he broke it off first. He just didn’t feel like he fit into my life, into our world, and he wanted something else.”

“I’m sorry.” Harry’s voice was quiet, and his eyes kind. “How long ago was that?”

“Nearly four years now, I guess. I haven’t dated much since, but, you know, for the longest time before Oscar, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be cut out for a relationship. I figured I was too messed up. But we were good together, and when it was over, I was okay. It made the whole relationship thing less scary.”

“That makes sense.” Harry smiled and then leaned over like he was about to give away a secret. “Your shop is amazing, you know.”

Draco’s chest swelled, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d started to glow with pride. “Thanks, Harry.”

* * *

They’d been walking nearly two hours the next morning when Draco came to an abrupt halt, and Harry nearly tripped over him. “What the hell?”

“Did you see that?”

Harry looked around, cautious, and lowered his voice. “See what?”

“Up ahead.” Draco backed up a few feet to where there was a break in the trees. “Come here. Look.” He pointed through the tree line to the southwest where the roof of a tower peaked above the canopy.

“What is _that_?”

Draco shook his head. “Not sure. Come on. Normally, I’d say let’s not go out of our way, but everything else we’ve encountered in this forsaken place has been useful in some way. I don’t think this is a coincidence.”

That made sense to Harry. And it wasn’t really that far off. They’d make up the time if they needed to.

Draco turned and cast a Silencing Charm on their feet, while Harry hit them both with a Disillusionment Charm. The added stealth gave them a bit of confidence to go about faster while staying unnoticed, so they quickened their pace, making their way to the site of the supposed tower within only twenty minutes.

The trees created a perfect circle around the ancient tower. And it did look ancient—older than Hogwarts, even. The stone was a battered grey, ivy growing up the base. There was no other building attached like Harry had expected to find; no castle, ramparts, or old church. Just the lone tower, nearly seventy feet high, with one single window near the top. Harry had never seen anything like it.

“Well, shit,” Draco muttered from behind his left ear. “Come on. Let’s sit down and watch. If this is what I think it is, we might see something happen soon.”

“You know this one,” Harry said, feeling around for Draco’s invisible hand and pulling him over to a fallen log where they could watch the clearing. “Fill me in.”

They both relaxed into the quiet, and Draco began his story. “Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman who had long wished for a child but had never received one.” It was odd, listening to the story told in Draco’s posh accent from an invisible source, though no stranger than listening to it while sitting in a fairy-tale forest watching the actual tower that would appear in the story.

“When the woman was with child, she craved a herb from the garden beyond their wall, a herb she couldn’t grow herself. It was called rapunzel, and the woman desired it greatly. She grew ill with need, and her husband, worrying for her health, climbed the wall and took it for her; she devoured it, but it only made her want more. Again, he climbed into the garden, but this time there was a Fairy waiting for him, angry with his thievery. He explained about his wife and her pregnancy, and the Fairy allowed it but demanded the child in return. The husband, afraid of losing his wife whom he loved above all others, agreed to the arrangement.”

“Sheesh,” Harry muttered. “These fairy tales are harsh.”

“Often,” agreed Draco. “Anyway, the baby was born, and the Fairy took her away and raised her as her own. The child was one of the most beautiful in the land with long, beautiful blonde hair that she never cut. When she was nearly a teenager, the Fairy put her in a tower with only a window for access. The Fairy would call to her, ‘Rapunzel, let down your hair to me,’ and Rapunzel would lower her long braid the twenty yards to the ground where the Fairy would climb it and enter. And so it went on for several years.”

Draco’s voice softened. “One day, there was a prince who came upon the tower and saw the Fairy climb. He waited until she’d gone, and he repeated the call. ‘Rapunzel, let down your hair to me.’ He climbed in, and they met, and then he returned again, and again, and again.” Draco sighed quietly. “They fell in love, and after a time, she got with child. Rapunzel, unknowing the cause of her condition, asked the Fairy why her clothing was too tight. The Fairy knew then what had been happening and cut off all of Rapunzel’s hair. She sent her away from the tower into the wilderness.”

Draco sat and let the silence of the forest wash over them for several moments, then finally continued. “When the prince, now a king, came that day, he did as he always did to see his love. ‘Rapunzel, let down your hair to me.’ The hair fell, but as he reached the top, the Fairy was there and told him he’d lost Rapunzel forever. In his despair, he threw himself from the tower. He lived, but the fall damaged his eyes, and he could no longer see. He wandered the forest, blind and alone for many years until he came upon a young woman living alone and miserable with her twin children. He knew her voice, and Rapunzel knew him. She wept onto his face, and her tears cured his blindness.”

“Fuck,” Harry growled. “That’s where it ends?”

“First edition, yeah. Later editions had him pushed from the tower by the Fairy and later rejoining his kingdom and living in peace and happiness with Rapunzel. They also changed other parts of the story, like changing the Fairy to a witch, and skipping over the pregnancy—though there _are_ the twins later, so it’s more like it’s just not mentioned.”

“So you think this—”

“Is Rapunzel’s tower? Sure looks like it, doesn’t it?”

Harry let out a little grunt. “That first part, about Rapunzel as a baby—”

“Exactly,” Draco agreed. “Sounds a bit like Ingrid and Frank, right? Adalwolfa said her granddaughter’s child was taken from them, and then we just stumble upon the tower? Hardly a coincidence.”

“So you think Rapunzel might have the spindle?”

“If you had a Portkey that would take your child home, and they were being taken from you, wouldn’t you find a way to sneak it into their things when they went?”

Harry’s shoulders stiffened. “Definitely, though I’d probably kill anyone who would take the child in the first place.”

“Well, that goes without saying,” Draco said, his voice flat.

Harry looked up at the tower and sighed. “So we just have to get up there. How the hell do we do that?”

Draco took a deep breath and gave a nervous chuckle. “Simple. We ask.”

* * *

_** Meanwhile... ** _

In the trees, a young woman sits listening to the story on the wind. It’s _her_ story, and she weeps for her lost love, her prince, her king. She caresses the slight bulge of her stomach. Someday he’ll be returned to her. She turns and walks into the forest.


	9. Chapter 9

** Chapter 9: _The Forbidden Tower_ **

Harry and Draco watched the tower for nearly two hours. Draco insisted they wait until midday, that it’d be less likely for the Fairy or the prince to come upon them unexpectedly. Their plan, such as it was, was to climb the tower, convince Rapunzel to trust them, ask her about the spindle, and offer to compensate her in some way if she had it.

“And if she doesn’t?” Harry asked as they removed their Disillusionment Charms and prepared to approach the tower. He couldn’t help but be amused at Draco’s detailed analysis of the situation. “What then?”

Draco simply raised one blond eyebrow and turned his flat gaze onto Harry. “You doubt my judgement?”

Harry shrugged. “It’s a valid question. I’m just saying we should have an alternative strategy if it becomes necessary.”

“Says the Gryffindor who spent seven years running into danger with a pair of school children as his backup.”

“Says the Gryffindor who learnt what an idiot he’d been for running into danger with a pair of school kids as his backup.”

“Says the enlightened Gryffindor. Got it,” Draco conceded with a chuckle. “If she doesn’t have it, we just go on the way we were previously heading and hope to make it to the village by tomorrow.”

“But we’ll leave her locked in a tower, all the while knowing her prince will eventually be discovered and blinded and that they’ll spend years apart, miserable.” Harry fastened Draco with a glare.

Draco rolled his eyes. “And get knocked up and have lovely babies and maybe run off to join his kingdom one day, yes.”

“You suck.”

“ _You_ suck. What if we change this and Rapunzel doesn’t get pregnant and then she’s miserable without her babies.” He smirked. “How would we ever forgive ourselves?”

“What if she’s already pregnant and just needs help to get to her prince’s kingdom?”

“Fucking Gryffindors,” Draco muttered. “Fine. We’ll save the girl and help her live happily ever after. Are you happy?” Draco scowled, looking like a toddler whose sweets had been taken away.

Harry couldn’t help but laugh. Taking a step closer, he nudged Draco’s shoulder with his own. “Very. Thank you.”

“Whatever,” Draco growled, but Harry didn’t miss the little smile that turned the edges of his lips as he led them to the tower.

* * *

The tower seemed even larger up close. The men approached from the back, out of sight of the window until they came to the base. Draco craned his neck to see the top.

“How high up do you think that window is?” Harry asked, his voice quiet.

“Sixty feet?” Draco guessed. “I don’t suppose you have your broom hidden in that pouch, do you? This climbing thing suddenly sounds unappealing.”

“I wish,” agreed Harry, a frown on his face as he looked up at the stone stretching before them. “Will you do the honours, or shall I?”

“You’re the one who seems to be charming the little girls and old women. Go for it.”

Harry slanted him a look that reminded Draco of one Minerva would give to a group of first-years, and then he cast a Sonorus. “Rapunzel, let down your hair to me.”

They waited, and Draco began to wonder if it’d work when a long, yellow, braided rope cascaded from the window and ended about two feet off the ground. Harry looked at the cord-like braid, then to Draco, then back to the braid as if it were a snake. Actually, not a snake, because Harry would probably just talk to that. He looked at it as if it were a sixty-foot braid of somebody’s actual hair that they were supposed to climb. Because really, that was much more disgusting than a snake if Draco took a moment to think about it.

Which he wasn’t going to do.

“Climb it, Potter. I’ll be right behind you.”

Harry took a deep breath, reached up, and grabbed onto the cord. It occurred to Draco, at that moment, that he was going to have to climb sixty feet. He was honestly disappointed with himself for having overlooked this detail, but he wasn’t going to admit it to Potter. Instead, he cast a quick Feather-light Charm on himself, and then one on Harry.

Harry wasn’t prepared for that, though. He almost fell off the rope—it was a _rope_ , not hair, and Draco would keep telling himself that—at the change in apparent gravity. Draco held his breath as Harry scrambled to correct himself.

“What the fuck was that?” Harry called from his position about twelve feet up.

“Just helping,” Draco said with a smirk, grabbing hold of the _rope_ and beginning to climb.

He managed to catch up to Harry after a couple of moments, and they made good time. Even with the charm, though, about forty feet up, Draco needed to stop to catch his breath. He reached up to nudge Harry’s foot and paused, momentarily stunned at the view above him: Harry’s toned arse and muscular thighs and—

He tugged at Harry’s foot to get his attention, and Harry looked down at Draco, then down at the ground. His face blanched.

“Right. Uh, what is it, Malfoy? I’m a little busy here?”

“Need a breather.”

“Yeah, okay.” Harry looked up to their window destination for a minute, and then back to Draco. “Merlin, how do you think the prince climbs this every day without magic?”

“The things men will do to get laid,” Draco drawled.

Harry laughed.

“Stop that. You’re shaking the rope.”

“You mean the hair?”

Draco’s stomach turned. “It’s a rope. Shut up and climb the _rope_ , Potter. Let’s finish this.”

Harry snorted and turned back, pulling his way to the top. As they approached the window, he waited for Draco to catch up. “I’ll go first, but cover me.”

“Like with the werewolf?” Draco asked.

Harry grunted. “Merlin, I hope it goes better than that did. Are you ready?”

Draco pulled out his wand. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Harry peeked through the window, expecting to see a young woman attached to the hair under his hands, but the bright autumn sun blinded him to the dim interior of the single-window tower.

“Right,” he muttered, and pulled himself over the ledge, landing with a thunk on the hard, wooden floor. A noise caught his attention, and he looked over, squinting in the darkened room.

“Prince,” a female voice said. “You have come. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Wait. What?” Harry asked. Surely the girl would know he wasn’t her lover.

“You have taken what is mine.” The voice grew more assertive, and Harry’s eyes began to focus on the form still holding the golden hair over the windowsill. “What have you to say for yourself?”

Harry’s eyes adjusted and found a beautiful woman standing in front of him. She was tall and lean, with flowing red hair hanging loose about her shoulders. Her dress was a pale colour Harry couldn’t identify. It wasn’t pink, or blue, or yellow, but it also seemed to be all those shades at once. He could make out small flowers embroidered across the neckline, and down the sleeves, and flowing over her skirts. Except, then they weren’t, and the flowers were withering and changing into simple greenery, and then again it was covered in the blooms of every flower Harry had ever seen.

It was stunning. _She_ was stunning. And then he saw her face, and he was speechless. Her eyes seemed to reflect the same blooms as her dress, but they were crystal blue and terrible. Harry had seen power before, but he’d never seen anything like her.

“Can you not speak, Prince?” she asked, her voice harsh.

“Prince, indeed,” came a drawling voice from the window.

Harry and the woman—could he call her a woman? Draco had said a Fairy kept the girl here, so surely she was the Fairy. Harry and the _Fairy_ turned to see Draco sitting on the ledge, his legs crossed as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He smiled when he saw her and hopped down, giving her a bow like something out of a Victorian-period romance movie. Not that Harry watched those or anything.

“Madame,” Draco said with his prissiest accent. “We are looking for this prince as well. We followed him this way and lost the trail, but finally tracked him to this tower. Are you saying he’s run away with something of yours?”

The Fairy narrowed her eyes and looked between them. “You are wizards.”

Draco nodded. “Indeed. I am Draco, and this is Harry. We are seeking a magical item that the prince stole from us. We heard him boasting of hiding it in this tower when he came to seek his lady.”

The Fairy’s eyes softened slightly. Harry concentrated on looking harmless and trustworthy, and also not like he was completely flying by the seat of his pants in regards to Draco’s story. They’d expected the girl, not the Fairy, so had nothing planned. Or, well, Harry hadn’t— _stupid Draco and his Slytherin secret plans that might actually be saving their stupid lives_.

“Perhaps we can come to an agreement, then, wizards.”

Another Fairy deal. _Great._

Harry wanted to sigh, but instead, he managed to arrange his face into a proper, I’m-so-intrigued-please-tell-me-what-you-have-in-mind expression. Draco should be impressed.

He chanced a look at Draco—who did not look impressed, the arse—and saw the man smiling congenially. “Perhaps, Madame. What should we call you?”

She arched an eyebrow, looking remarkably like Narcissa Malfoy. Perhaps Narcissa was part-Fairy? That would explain a lot.

“Fee,” she said. “You may call me Fee.” She dropped the rope of hair, leaving it hanging in place, and twirled, her skirts flaring around her as she conjured a chair and sat down. “Please, gentlemen. Join me.”

With a look at Harry, Draco nodded his head towards Fee, gesturing for him to join her, so Harry Conjured a chair nearby. Draco did the same, making his chair fancier than Harry’s basic wood armchair, but not as elaborate as the Fairy’s. Ponce.

“What is it that you propose?” Draco asked.

Fee continued to watch them both closely. “I shall help you search this tower for the hidden item you seek, and in return, you shall tell me all you know of this prince you’ve been hunting and his associations with my child.”

Harry waited for Draco to make his move. It was kind of fun to watch him work.

“We shall agree with one stipulation. We shall not help you hurt the prince. We are not violent men; we simply want the item promised to us.”

“Deal,” the Fairy said, and clapped her hands, sealing the agreement with a puff of magic. Harry felt it settle upon him like an Unbreakable Vow and wanted to kick Draco. _Trust. I need to trust him._

Fee stood and looked around the tower room, finally allowing Harry to do the same.

The room appeared more extensive than it should have been, resembling a small, open flat. A sleeping area with a large canopied bed lay next to a beautiful sitting area with various activities set around for the girl to enjoy—the harp, in particular, caught Harry’s eye. To the rear of the room was a massive hearth set for baking and to the right of that, a bathing alcove.

After a moment of examination, Fee put out her hands and began to turn, muttering under her breath. Magic flooded the room. It tasted of sunshine, and a summer day after the rain, and of lavender and rose and honeysuckle. A smile formed on Harry’s lips before he could stop it, the pleasure of the moment overwhelming his senses.

Draco wore a similar look, though he did a better job of hiding it. Harry probably wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been studying the other man’s expressions so closely lately. Not that he’d been studying Draco, just that he’d noticed. Things. Sometimes.

Several movements around the room drew Harry’s attention away from not-watching Draco, and then a tugging at his throat and a twitch in his pocket had him jumping in alarm. The Fairy’s laughter twinkled, and she clicked her fingers, making Harry’s trousers settle down, but it did nothing for his nerves. It’d felt like his wand was trying to go to her, as was the pouch around his neck.

“My apologies, gentlemen,” she said, her voice sounding as though she were still laughing, though her face looked merely pleased. A small collection of items floated through the air to her, landing and creating a pile at her feet. “I merely asked the room for any magical item, and it tried to provide yours, as well.”

“No apology necessary, Fee,” Draco said, his face mild, but his attention now focused keenly on the pile of items before them. “So many items. Is your child magical?”

Fee shook her head. “No, she’s not, but she’s well used to my magic, and I’ll admit that I do tend to spoil her.” Her voice turned irritated at the end of her statement, and Harry reminded himself of the story. She’d see the girl’s actions as a betrayal.

Draco, ever the Slytherin, gave her a sycophantic smile. “You’ve been a kind and charitable mistress to the child, Madame.” He gestured to the pile. “May I?”

Fee sat in her chair and leaned back, giving a regal wave. “Only the device you’ve come for.”

Draco met Harry’s eyes and raised his eyebrows. “Can you help me?”

Harry nodded and approached the cluster of items. There was a strange assortment to rummage through: a tea kettle, a set of knitting needles, a dishcloth, a shawl, and some slippers. Draco set aside what appeared to be a jewellery box of some kind before picking up a long, pointy piece of wood with a bulb on one end to hold it by. He examined it and pointed to the engraving of a star at its end. “It’s as she described,” Draco muttered. “This is it.”

Fee held out her hand, expecting Draco to turn it over. Draco stood, passing the device to Harry, and whispered, “Put it in your pouch. Now.”

Harry didn’t hesitate; he simply turned so that the Fairy couldn’t see and put the spindle away, hoping Draco had a plan. He turned back as Fee stood. She was pissed off.

“You defy me? I made a simple request. Let me see the item. I must know that you are not stealing from me, that this is not an item _I_ have provided for the girl.”

“That was not part of the bargain, Fee,” Draco said calmly. “You’ve ensured we got what we came for, so now it’s up to us. Let us tell you now what we know of the prince.”

The Fairy’s face flushed, her eyes darkening. Her red hair began to lift, and Harry was nearly certain he saw sparks of static flashing through it. “No, you are thieves. Honest men would show me what they’ve taken.”

She gathered her magic around her, and it was nothing like before. Where that had felt like the greatest pleasures of summer, this felt like the wrath of every midsummer storm—like a cyclone, the air buzzing with electricity, the wind churning and battering Harry’s face. Draco grabbed Harry’s arm.

But nobody expected the interruption. All three of them should have, Harry would later observe. Fee had been waiting for it before Harry and Draco had arrived. Harry and Draco knew the story. There was no excuse for it; not for any of them.

Still, distractions of magic and angry Fairies would do that. So, when the voice trailed in from the window, they all froze and slowly turned towards the handsome man now hanging over the windowsill.

“Rapunzel?”

* * *

_** Meanwhile… ** _

Prince Henry stares at the spectacle before him.

When he arrived at the tower, eager to see his lady, he was surprised to find her hair already waiting. He smiled, thinking she must be as enthusiastic today as he. As he approached the top, however, he felt the gathering of a summer storm. The air changed, crackling with energy, despite the clear skies. Lights flashed in Rapunzel’s window.

Whatever was happening, it was inside with his love. He climbed faster.

But he couldn’t have expected this. His mind barely registers the two men standing in the periphery, though he does notice their strange clothing and the stick each holds out like a sword.

His focus is on the threat, and that is the woman.

Her red hair would likely reach her waist when calm, but now, it swirls about her enraged face as if pushed around by the winds of a storm. Which, now that Henry realises it, is likely what’s going on. She seems to be the source of the storm, ready to attack.

But he’s not afraid for himself. He has only one concern.

“Rapunzel?”


	10. Chapter 10

** Chapter 10: _It Takes Two_ **

“You!” Fee screamed.

Draco stared at the man in the window—almost a boy, really, with light brown hair and beautiful, pale green eyes—hanging half in and half out of the tower. _Fuck._ The prince. Draco’s mind scrambled, moving the pieces around the chessboard.

They’d planned to get the spindle and save Rapunzel. Draco had promised Harry. Then, she’d not been there, and the plans changed. Get the spindle, Apparate the fuck away from the angry Fairy, and save themselves. It was perfect.

But now there was the prince.

Draco glanced at the look on Harry’s face—eyes wide, mouth agape—and knew there was no way the Gryffindor would forgive him if they Apparated away now, leaving the prince to the Fairy’s wrath. _Merlin._

There was no help for it, really. Both Draco and Harry already had their wands drawn. He tried to catch Harry’s eye as the Fairy’s wind grew, tossing dust into his face and probably making him utterly filthy. He _really_ hated being filthy. And he couldn’t even bring himself to think about what it must be doing to his hair.

Harry turned, and Draco nodded towards the prince. They needed to get to him, pull him from the window, and then, maybe, they could all three Apparate out together. Harry inched closer to the prince, trying not to draw Fee’s attention as she ranted and yelled at the young man in the window for any manner of sins that Draco couldn’t be arsed to pay attention to. Draco eased closer as well, keeping his wand focused on Fee, pushing hard against the wind circling through the room.

The prince, however, seemed not to know that he needed to stay put. Instead, he stepped away, further into the room, still yelling for Rapunzel.

“She’s not here!” Harry yelled over the wind. “We have to get you out of here!”

 _Fuck_.

Fee turned her gaze onto Harry. “Thief and now a betrayer!” She reached out, and Harry’s wand flew from his hand and landed on the floor somewhere deep in the room.

“Shit!” Harry yelled, and Draco cringed.

He spoke clearly and loudly, willing himself to be heard over the wind. “The deal was for knowledge, Fee. We would tell you what we know, but we told you we’d not contribute to you hurting him. We _will_ save him if we must.”

“He has taken my daughter from me!” she yelled. “You cannot save him!” The wind kicked up stronger and converged near where Harry was approaching the prince, pushing them both towards the window. Draco knew the fall would kill them, or, if the tale was to be believed, kill Harry and blind the prince.

Able to move easier now that Fee had her fury focused on the others, Draco manoeuvred himself behind her, angling so that nothing would hit the men across the room. He needed to get her to stop. He didn’t want to hurt her, simply disarm her.

The thought made him grin, and he raised his wand, thinking of Harry. _“Expelliarmus!”_

* * *

The wind pushed Harry towards the window. With no wand, he was nearly as helpless as the prince. The Fairy’s magic was so raw, so intense, so pure; he had no idea how to combat it. The storm whipped his face and pulled at his glasses, debris stinging his eyes. He tried dropping to the floor, but the wind held him up, pushing, pushing, pushing.

Draco moved up behind her, and Harry hoped he had a plan. He couldn’t keep his focus. He had to fight the force pushing him towards the ever-approaching edge. He saw the prince, nearly two feet from him, bump into the wall near the window, the gale edging him closer with every moment.

 _“Expelliarmus!”_ Draco’s voice soared over the roar of the wind, and the Fairy screamed.

The wind turned and caught her in its centre, pulling her with it towards the opening of the tower. She reached the window, arms scrambling to grab hold of something, anything, as her Conjured storm swept her out through the only possible means of escape.

“No!” the prince called, Fee’s hands finding purchase on his arm, dragging him with her the final few inches to both of their deaths.

Harry threw his arms around the prince’s waist, attempting to haul him back. The Fairy’s strength, combined with the wind, was too much. The prince pulled Harry with him, his feet slowly sliding towards the window.

Something slipped around Harry’s waist, and the added weight slowed his progress. He stopped moving, the prince still in his arms.

“I’ve got you,” Draco’s voice said in Harry’s ear, his breath warm and hot and entirely too intimate for Harry to think about given the current situation.

Fee finally let go, the wind sucking her from the tower and into the open sky where it dispersed, dropping her more than seventy feet to the meadow below.

“Oh gods,” Harry gasped, slowly letting go of the prince who was trying to slump to the floor. “Do you think—?” He couldn’t bear to look, but they had to know.

Draco walked to the window and then backed away. “She’s dead.”

“Are you—”

“I’m sure, Potter,” Draco said, his voice chilled. He took a deep breath as he turned to Harry, his face pale and drawn. “Apologies. Yes, quite sure.”

The more Harry watched, the more he realised that Draco appeared more than ill. He looked exhausted, dishevelled, and filthy. There was no gleam of victory in his face, just sorrow and regret.

“Draco,” Harry said softly, “are you okay?”

A loud sob interrupted any answer Draco might have given, and they both turned to the prince now huddled near Harry’s feet.

“Rapunzel, my love,” the man cried. “My love…”

Harry looked to Draco, hoping he’d get no argument for what he was about to propose. He huddled down next to the prince and put his hand upon his shoulder. “She’s alive, Your Highness.”

“What?” He looked up, his pale green eyes hopeful. “Truly?”

Harry smiled, somewhat jealous of such a pure and true love, even if it were only to be found in a fairy tale. “Truly.” He glanced at Draco again and grinned, giving a little shrug. “And we’ll help you find her.”

Harry heard a little gasp behind him, but the prince stood up suddenly, causing Harry to stumble back.

“No,” the prince said, his voice strong. “No,” he said again, looking at the room. “I will find her and take her home with me. Please, thank you for helping, but I shall save her myself.”

Harry looked to Draco who just shrugged. “It’s a Prince Charming thing, maybe.”

Snorting, Harry turned back to the prince. “Can we at least help you get down?”

“Nope!” the prince said, smiling and stepping up on the window, holding onto the rope of hair. “Thank you again.” He dropped down and was gone from view.

“Bloody hell,” Harry said after a moment.

Draco nodded. He stepped closer and handed Harry his wand. “Hang on to this better next time, would you please? That’s twice in two days.”

“Fuck you,” Harry said, elbowing Draco with a chuckle, but then he remembered. “Are we going to talk about that Expelliarmus?”

Draco’s face darkened. “No. Not yet.”

Harry nodded and took Draco’s arm and then Apparated back to their camp.

* * *

Harry watched Draco closely for the rest of the day.

They sat by the fire, only inches separating them as they ate their spaghetti rings.

“So, what do you think?” Harry nudged Draco’s foot with his own. “Is it horrible?”

“Is this truly considered pasta?” Draco asked. “It’s edible, but the sauce, if you can call it that, tastes like the damned tin and these rings might as well not be here. Don’t get me started on these tiny little disgusting balls of…meat.”

Harry laughed. “I don’t think anyone actually considers this pasta, no, but it’s not that bad. Kids like it.”

“Children have no taste.”

“Teddy makes a mean lasagna.”

Draco turned to look at Harry, raising an eyebrow. “Does he? Well, I’m not sure I’ve ever had him in the kitchen. House-elves and all.”

“He won’t have house-elves to rely upon when he’s an adult, most likely. It’s good for him to learn.”

Draco nodded but remained silent as they finished their meals. Finally, he said so quietly that Harry almost missed it, “I miss him.”

Harry, not sure what Draco was talking about, cocked his head. “Hmm?”

“Teddy,” Draco said, louder. “I miss him. He’s such a good boy, and he’s the only person I know who looks at me with no judgement, no hidden opinions on what I should or shouldn’t be doing, or on what I could be doing differently. He simply looks at me as if he loves me, and he makes me want to be better.” He paused. “Merlin, I killed a woman tonight. How is that being better? How can I look at him after that?” He dropped his head into his hands.

Harry sat, his mind spinning in several directions, but immediate comfort won out. He rested his hand on Draco’s shoulder. “You defended yourself, and me, and an innocent man.”

Draco scoffed.

“You hit her with an _Expelliarmus_ , for fuck’s sake. You didn’t intend to kill her, Draco.”

“I didn’t intend to kill Dumbledore either, but they both seem to be dead. And off a fucking tower.”

Harry froze. He hadn’t made that connection, but now his heart bled. He needed to find a way to help. His therapist's mind wanted to ask Draco how it made him feel, or push him to think it through from other perspectives, but he couldn’t do that. He didn’t want to. He just wanted to make him feel better.

“You were incredible up there,” Harry said quietly. “I was so fucking impressed the entire time. I knew you had it under control, every step of the way. Even when she took my wand, I knew you were there, that you had my back, and I felt safe.”

Draco looked up, his eyebrows wrinkled and his eyes searching. “What…?”

Harry didn’t drop his gaze. He held Draco’s grey eyes and watched the firelight reflect inside them.. “I couldn’t have done this all without you. And if I had, I wouldn’t have done it nearly as well.” Harry blinked and took a deep breath. “Kind of like raising Teddy. It works better with your help.”

“Harry,” Draco said, his voice deep. “I wouldn’t ever take Teddy from you.”

“I know, but he needs _you_ , too, not just me. We’ll make it work.”

Draco’s mouth twitched in what could have been a smile, and Harry’s eyes fell to those lips. He couldn’t think about anything right then but how Draco made him feel, and how good those lips looked, and they seemed to be moving closer. Harry could feel Draco’s shoulder, where Harry’s hand still lay, coming nearer. He couldn’t breathe. He tilted his head and leaned forward, and—

“Gentlemen!”

Rumpelstiltskin’s cheerful voice rang through the night, causing Harry and Draco to jump back. The Fairy stood on the other side of the fire, looking far too pleased with himself. _Arsehole._

“So, I hear you had a run-in with Fee!”

Draco shifted.

“Oh, fear not, fear not. She’s fine, though she’s in a bad mood. She won’t be able to retake mortal form for at least another two hundred years. Losing your human body isn’t something to play around with.”

Draco let out a little sigh, and Harry relaxed. It was one less chain Draco had hanging around his neck for the rest of his life.

“So, let me see it,” Rumpelstiltskin said, an eager smile on his face as he held out his hand. “We must make sure it’s the correct device.”

“Fee tried to take it from us,” Draco said, a hint of warning in his voice. “But we _need_ to get home.”

“And you will. Make no mistake.”

Draco looked at Harry and nodded, so Harry withdrew the spindle. They’d examined it earlier but hadn’t been able to make it work. Harry hesitantly handed it to the Fairy.

Rumpelstiltskin hummed—reminding Harry of Arthur Weasley with a new Muggle appliance to play with—and he examined the spindle. “Wonderful. It’s just how I remember it. You, gentlemen, have done a good job. I’m most impressed.”

Harry cleared his throat. “And now you’ll return us home as agreed, yeah?”

Rumpelstiltskin cackled, making shivers run up Harry’s spine. “I did not say I’d do it _now_. In fact, I did not say _when_ at all. I have things to do first.” He grinned, showing his pointed teeth. “I’ll be in touch.” And he popped away.

Harry’s stomach twisted, and he jumped to his feet. “Goddammit! Fucking bastard!” He kicked a log sticking out of the fire, throwing embers in every direction, and then turned on Draco. “What the fuck just happened? You said they had to abide by their deals.”

Malfoy’s eyes blazed, but his manner turned cold. “He found the loophole.”

“Fuck!”

“Indubitably.”

Harry stalked over to Malfoy. “So now what, huh? Any other fucking plans in that slimy, Slytherin head of yours?”

Draco stood, and for the first time, Harry realised that the man had about two inches of height on him. He used those two inches to loom, but Harry refused to be intimidated.

“What happened to ‘I trust you, Draco’, and ‘You were incredible, Draco’?” Draco mocked.

“What happened is the fucking Fairy double-crossed us!”

“He didn’t. He’s completely playing by the rules. I just fucked up the rules.”

Harry stepped forwards, the anger and frustration struggling to get out, and then reached up and _pushed_.

“What the hell?” Draco cried, stumbling back. His eyes flashed, and he pushed Harry back. “I get that you’re pissed off, Potter, but aren’t you going to go off and meditate it out or some shit like that?”

“Meditate _this_ ,” Harry growled, putting all of his weight into the next shove. Draco, unfortunately, hadn’t been expecting it and fell onto the ground, carrying Harry down with him.

Draco rolled, pushing Harry down from his place on top and leaned into his face. “I’m just as mad as you are, but you _know_ that this was not intentional on my part. Get over yourself.”

Harry let his body go slack, but when Draco relaxed his grip, he pushed his foot off the ground and flipped them again, this time holding Draco down. “I’m stronger and a lot more flexible than you, Malfoy.”

Something flashed in Draco’s eyes, and he sneered. “Don’t be such a bloody tease.”

All of Harry’s emotions from the past several hours rose through him: fear, gratitude, anger, admiration, frustration, and lust. It all came out on a growl, and he leaned down and kissed Draco hard, pushing every feeling out into the other man. It was rough, and angry, and mean, and Draco matched him completely. Teeth bit at lips, and tongues swiped hard.

And then something changed. A moan escaped one of them. Harry couldn’t tell who it was, but it was as if a signal flared that they both followed. They pulled back, eyes locked, Harry laying on top of Draco next to a flickering fire in the middle of a fairy-tale wilderness, and the anger left. Harry leaned back down, slowly this time, and hesitated with just a sliver of space between them.

“I trust you, Draco.”

Draco didn’t say anything, but he closed the remaining space, and this time, it was like magic. Harry’s lips tingled as Draco’s slowly brushed his, and when his tongue outlined the contours of Harry’s mouth, Harry let Draco in.

He let Draco in, and there was a flash of light so bright that Harry was glad his eyes were still closed. He didn’t dare pull away from the kiss. He was lost in the hum of intimacy and buzz of attraction, in the sheer delight of the moment.

His mind could only repeat one thing. _I let Draco in._

* * *

_** Meanwhile… ** _

Teddy Remus Lupin is nine years old. He’s not a baby. He doesn’t cry or moan, and he doesn’t need constant supervision. He’s going to go to Hogwarts in two years, and he won’t have anyone to watch him there except the teachers.

But watching your dad and your only cousin argue and then fall on the floor after a big flash of light is different. A kid isn’t supposed to see the adults he counts on lie unconscious after some kind of freaky magic that nobody can identify knocks them out. Not even Aunt Hermione knows what it is, and she bloody well knows everything. Uncle Ron and Dad both agree, so Teddy knows it’s true.

When it happened, and Teddy ran to his dad and Draco and tried to wake them, and they wouldn’t get up, well, Teddy may have cried. And Alex saw, which Teddy figures might mortify him later, but for right now, he just wants his dad and Draco to be okay, so he doesn’t care.

He watches Aunt Hermione examine them, along with someone she brought over from the hospital whom she says knows all about curses. Teddy knows that the Healer, Theo, likes Draco and is married to Draco’s best friend Pansy, so he’ll help if he can. And _everyone_ likes dad, except Draco, so they’ll be okay. Aunt Hermione and Theo will help them.

A hand falls on Teddy’s shoulder. Uncle Ron’s freckled face has the same look on it he gets when the Cannons are losing, that one where his eyebrows are all scrunched up and his mouth is tight, so Teddy doesn’t believe him when he tries to say everything is fine and that Teddy shouldn’t worry.

“It’s been almost an hour, Ron,” Aunt Hermione says. “If they were going to wake up quickly, they’d have done it by now. We’ll have to get them to St Mungo’s. Can you call Draco’s mother? She’ll need to know, and maybe she can take Teddy for the night until we know more.”

“No!” Teddy interrupts. “Aunt Narcissa can go to the hospital with me, but I’m not leaving them!”

“Teddy,” Aunt Hermione says. Her voice is kind, but Teddy doesn’t care. “We need to take care of them, and they’d want to know that you’re someplace safe while they’re getting better.”

“I’m _not_ fucking leaving them,” Teddy growls.

Uncle Ron turns his head while Aunt Hermione’s eyes widen. But Dad says that sometimes swearing helps people take you seriously, and they _need_ to take Teddy seriously.

Aunt Hermione opens her mouth, and Teddy braces himself for the repercussions of his word choice, but a super bright flash like the one Teddy saw earlier covers the room, and everyone shouts, covering their eyes.

And then, _then,_ the best thing Teddy has heard all day comes from behind him.

On the floor, Draco groans.


	11. Chapter 11

** Chapter 11: _Ever After_ **

The first thing Draco Malfoy noticed as he gained consciousness was voices. Many voices. Excited voices all around him, more than he’d heard in days—which wasn’t good, as his head was pounding.

He let out a groan. “Bollocks.”

“Draco!” someone yelled, and feet pounded around him, making him pull his hands under him to protect them. He opened his eyes and pushed up. Lying on his stomach was undignified, and he had no idea who all was there, watching.

“Draco!” This time, he recognised the voice as Teddy’s, and his heart soared. He was home, and Teddy was here.

“Teddy,” he said softly. The pounding in his head urged him to remain quiet. He opened his arms, and the boy crawled onto his lap. “Merlin, I missed you. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Teddy said, resting his head on Draco’s shoulder.

“Draco, can you tell us what happened?” Granger asked, disrupting Draco’s long-awaited hug with his cousin. She’d squatted down so that he wouldn’t have to look up at her.

“Healer Granger, do you happen to have something for my headache? I’ll fill you in once I can think clearly.”

Hermione gave him a tight smile and reached in her bag, passing him a standard headache pain potion. He drank it and breathed slowly for a moment as the pain passed.

He handed the vial back with a smile. “Thank you. Now, I’m sure Harry can fill you in as well as I can, but—”

Teddy pulled back and looked at him. “Dad is still asleep. He didn’t wake up yet.”

Draco felt a moment of panic and met Granger’s eyes. “He didn’t wake up?”

“No,” Hermione said, a slight waver in her voice. “I’m hoping you can tell me what happened so that I know how to treat him.”

“Damn.” Draco looked at Teddy. “I need to go to your dad. Can you let me up?”

Teddy got out of the way, and Draco turned from his place on the floor, finding Harry lying on his back about four feet away, a crowd of people around him. No longer caring about decorum, Draco crawled across the floor, pushing Weasley out of the way.

“Harry.” Draco checked him over. He looked like he had days before; before they’d left and lived a week in another dimension. He was clean with no beard, his clothes were tidy, and the random scratches he’d had littering his face from the wind fight with Fee were gone. “Harry, wake up. We did it. Come on.”

He heard Teddy sniffle behind him.

“Draco,” Hermione said urgently. “If you tell us what happened, how you woke up, maybe it’ll help. _Please._ ”

“How I woke up,” he repeated, considering. How _had_ he woken up? Then he remembered the kiss. The second kiss, and the moment when Harry relaxed into it when Draco felt like they were in the kiss _together._ “Granger,” he said quietly. She leaned down, and he glanced at her. “I suggest you get a hold on your husband. I’m going to try something.”

She raised her eyebrows, but gave him a nod and turned to Ron. “Ron, can you comfort Teddy for a moment?”

“Uh, sure,” Ron said, and he took Teddy into his arms.

_Granger really should have been a Slytherin._

Draco looked down into Harry’s face, his long, dark lashes lying against the top of his cheeks. “Here goes nothing, Potter,” he muttered.

He leaned down and laid his lips on Harry’s. Nothing happened, so Draco grabbed onto the feelings he’d had back at the campsite, to that moment when it had been only them, when it had just felt right.

Harry’s lips moved. He parted his mouth and let Draco _in,_ and Draco sank into the kiss. Harry’s hand ran through Draco’s hair. A low moan sounded in Draco’s ears, and he felt a moment of wonder when he wasn’t sure if it was his own or Harry’s.

“Shut it, Ronald,” he heard Hermione say.

Harry’s lips curved into a smile, and he chuckled.

“What the hell, ‘Mione? A bloody kiss? He woke up with a bloody kiss? What is he, a fairy-tale princess?”

Draco opened his eyes and looked into Harry’s amused, deep green gaze. “Told you that you were the princess.”

* * *

It was nearly an hour later when Harry and Draco got Teddy back to Grimmauld Place. Teddy wasn’t willing to let either of them out of his sight, and Harry was just fine with that. He wasn’t really ready to be away from Teddy and Draco, either. They settled in together on the sofa, Teddy between them, and it wasn’t five minutes before Teddy was asleep, each of his hands holding onto one of them.

Harry let his head fall back, then turned to look at Draco. Merlin, he looked good. And he smelled good. Much better than he had by the end of their adventure.

Adventure. If that was what you wanted to call that crazy trip into another realm. Hermione seemed to think the entire thing had been lived out in their heads, a charm from the book they’d been standing near in Draco’s antiquities room. First edition Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Draco had said, kept under protection spells by an old wizarding family.

“What do you think triggered it?” Harry finally asked. “I mean, how long have you had that book?”

“About a year,” Draco said quietly. He looked down at Teddy and back to Harry. “It’s a children’s book at its core. Did you notice each of our adventures involved children? Not all of the fairy tales do, but all the ones we encountered did. They were all about protecting the child. Even Rapunzel was about a child taken from her parents and being rejected by the parent she’d come to know.”

Harry looked at the sleeping boy between them, his hair a messy black. “So you think Teddy triggered it?”

Draco shrugged. “I don’t know. He said he heard us arguing and saw us fall unconscious, so he was there.” He paused and gave Harry a small smile. “And we came back after we were able to learn to work together.”

Harry couldn’t resist. “And when you kissed me.”

Draco scoffed. “You kissed _me_ , Potter. I just returned it.”

“Of course,” Harry said with a laugh. “So what’s the big deal with kisses in fairy tales?”

A blush spread over Draco’s pale face, and Harry’s curiosity grew. “What? Tell me.” Draco hesitated. “Come on.”

Draco sighed and looked away. “Fine. In the stories, it’s usually True Love’s Kiss. The princess, you, is unconscious, and the handsome prince, me, comes along and wakes her with True Love’s Kiss. So you see? Like I said. You’re a princess.”

True Love’s Kiss. Merlin. Was there anything actually to that? He studied Draco’s profile, his sharp, patrician nose softened by the wisp of a pale fringe covering his brow.

“Right,” Harry finally said, and they both fell into silence.

Harry considered how he wanted this to go. He liked Draco. He trusted him now. He honestly was kind of curious where that kiss was going to take him, but he felt like he needed to be the one to make the first move. He needed to let Draco into his relationship with Teddy. Let him into his life.

“Hey, Draco…”

“Yes, Harry?” Draco’s voice was quiet and sleepy.

“That week you want to spend with Teddy…what if, instead of Teddy going to you for a week every month, you came here? You stayed with us?”

Draco looked over. “Stayed with you?”

“Well, yeah. You’d get to do your lessons, and get closer to Teddy, and, uh, maybe to me, too.”

Draco was silent for several moments. Harry started to get nervous and looked away.

“Listen, it was just an idea. If you don’t want—”

“Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

Harry turned his head to see Draco leaning in over Teddy. “If I must,” Harry said with a grin and leaned the rest of the way to meet Draco’s mouth. Neither of them noticed Teddy’s hair go bright pink below them.

* * *

** Meanwhile… **

He feels their magic leave the realm, and a scream runs through him. He’d been so close this time. It was his own fault, he knew. He could have left with them right when they gave him the spindle. He just couldn’t resist making them wait one more day.

And now, he can’t use the spindle’s magic to return them to their world. He can’t use it to _stay_ in their world, away from the magic of this blasted book that always seems to outsmart him no matter how many times he’s tried to escape.

Rumpelstiltskin disappears into the night, wondering if and when another chance will come.

* * *

Teddy watches Draco and Harry under lidded eyes and smiles. He’s always wished they would get together. Harry is a great dad, but he needs someone like Draco to keep him safe and make him happy.

Whatever’s caused it, he’s glad.

It’s like a fairy tale.

_Finis_

**Author's Note:**

> To **Persephoneapple** \- As soon as I saw your third prompt for a fairy tale Drarry story, my mind started whirling. I know this is probably not what you expected when you suggested that idea, but it was so much fun to write, and I hope it was just as enjoyable to read. Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season!
> 
> ====
> 
> This fic was part of HD Erised 2020; thank you so much for reading! You can show your appreciation for the author in a comment below. ♥


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